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Objections 



and Answers 



Ira C. ^dwards 



THE SPECTATOR COMPANY 

CHICAGO NEW YORK 



Objections and 

nswers ^^> 



A useful book to life insurance agents in meeting 
objections and evasions set up by prospects 



By 

Ira G. Edwards 

Author of 
''Uncle Donald's Life Insurance," '* Right Up to the Minute," etc. 



Fourth Edition 
Price, $100 



1918 

THE SPECTATOR COMPANY 

Chicago Office 135 William Street 

INSURANCB EXCHANGE NEW YORK 



,'\'\ 






Copyright 191 8 by 

THE SPECTATOR COMPANY 

New York 



Ci.A511163 



ilAi-i ~c iai9 



INDEX 



A Few Facts .... 


• 




IX 


A Chapter for Beginners 


I 


Systematize Your Work . . 






7 


Creating the Demand 






9 


The Wife Who Objects . 






12 


Making a ** Combine'* 






i6 


His First Lesson .... 






19 


The Twister . . 






24 


The Fool Failure .... 






26 


The Smart Aleck . . . . 






29 


Squelching a ** Butter-in*' . 






33 


A Story with a Lesson . . . 






40 


A Sacred Idiot .... 






47 


Rubbing It In . 






51 


The Two Systems . 






54 


Keezel 






58 


Writing a Joint Business Policy . 






62 


A Finishing Argument 






65 


The Man Who ' ' Butts In * * 






70 


Trite Truths .... 






. 72 


He Miscued .... 






75 


The **Mutuals" and *'Stock** Companies 






. 79 


Can You Beat This? 




• 


82 


Pointers . 






. 84 


Objections and Answers . 




• 


94 


The Actuary . 






. 109 


The Superintendent of Agencies 




• 


no 


The Medical Director 






. 113 


The Medical Examiner 




• 


117 


Straight Goods 






, 120 


About Yourself .... 




• 


122 


An Agent Writes . . 






. 123 


Avoirdupois . . . • 




• 


125 



HI 



"Trouble has a trick of coming 

Butt end first; 
Viewed approaching — ^then youVe seen it 

At its worst. 
Once surmounted, straight it waxes 

Ever small, 
And it tapers till there's nothing 

Left at all/' 



IV 



DEDICATION 




HE splendid army of Life Underwriters is 
largely made up of great-hearted, loyal, 
honest gentlemen who, if stood up in a 
row, would compare favorably in intelli- 
gence, manliness, and morality with a like 
number chosen from the ranks of any 
secular calling on earth. 

The writer cherishes the friendship and helpfulness 
of himdreds of the brethren whose cheery words and 
pleasant smiles have smoothed away many rough places 
in his earlier travels and whose good comradeship still 
cheers him on his way. True there were and still are a 
few black sheep in the flock, but they are growing whiter, 
either from old age or remorse, and let us pray that the 
good they have done and are doing will far outweigh 
the bad, when their policies mature and they are called 
upon to cash in up yonder. May they find their re- 
serves intact, and their surplus at least half as much as 
they talked here below. 

To this grand army of noble workers this book is 
dedicated. Its quiver is loaded with shafts that are 
aimed at the heart as well as at the head. May they 
strike home. 

Here's to you, 

I. C. E. 




PREFACE 

HE writer of this pamphlet has made the 
statement that there is not a single argu- 
ment against Life Instirance that cannot 
be promptly met and overcome by the 
truth aptly applied. To be able to meet 
and promptly answer these arguments or 
objections in a convincing manner is to be able to land 
your prospect, and the object of this publication is to help. 
The writer does not wish to appear in the r61e of a 
great and exceptionally successful Life Insurance agent, 
but rather as one who has been through the mill, and 
has seen, in his labors of more than twenty years on 
the field, something of the htmior and more of the pathos 
incident to the work, and believes that he has learned 
some things that ought to prove helpful. 
^ Therefore, before entering into the matter of ** Objec- 
tions and Answers," let us take up briefly a few abso- 
lutely necessary facts without which the solicitor is 
deprived of his chief weapons for meeting and closing 
his **prospect." 

It has been said that the life insurance agent is born 
and not made, but the observation of the writer points 
to the contrary. The profession of Life Insurance So- 
licitor is as much an acquire^ art as is that of any of the 
learned sciences, and it is aTfallacy to assume that he 
is "born and not made.*' Qae-tenth of the study and 
preparation necessary to fit a man for success in any of 
the learned professions, if applied to the study of the 
simpler truths of life insurance, would make a whirlwind 
success out of the ordinary man who possesses tact and 

vii 



Objections and Answers 



determination. You cannot become a successful at- 
torney by reading Blackstone alone, any more than you 
can become a successful life underwriter by reading 
only your company's rate book. Hundreds of volumes 
have been written in an attempt to educate men to 
become successful life insurance solicitors, much of 
which has been and still is of great value, but in most 
cases, these publications deal in generalities which are 
read and soon forgotten. 

It is the purpose of this publication to skip all gener- 
alities and give you such facts as will place in your 
hands the power to write '*Aps.*' There are hundreds 
of good solicitors to ten good /* Closers. *' Volumes have 
been written in an attempt to teach us when the ** Psy- 
chological Moment** has arrived to **pull out the ap!" 
This is all rot, and has hindered rather than helped in 
the work. You are not out hunting for *' Psychological 
Moments'* but for Applications. 

Therefore, you will find in the following pages only 
that which is practical and helpful, and if you will read 
and heed these truths, and act upon them steadily and 
consistently, you will double your income, and unless 
you are utterly devoid of every particle of appreciation, 
you will thank the writer for the suggestions. 

I. C. E. 



vm 



A FEW FACTS 

IT IS A FACT that your calling is one of the noblest 
Professions, and not a Trade. 

IT IS A FA CT that every man that buys an old line 
life insurance policy gets absolutely value received 
for his money. 

IT IS A FA CT that life insurance is the most valuable 
property on the market today, for the following 
reasons: ^ 

It always increases in value and never decreases. \ 
It is the only property that a man leaves (barring \ 
legal exemptions) that cannot be taken for any 1 
kind of a debt, unless so ordered by the assured. | 
It is always worth one hundred cents on the dol-^ 
lar and is paid over without a penny of expense, 
for it never has to be probated like other property. \ 
It is an absolutely safe savings account for it can- 
not be lost or dissipated by bad management nor 
invested in unstable or fluctuating securities. 
It is PROPERTY to the full extent of the policy, t 
and every payment means a saving and not an / 
expenditure. It is a CASH ASSET, not a liability./ 

IT IS A FA CT that every insurable person ought to be 
insured. 

IT IS A FACT that YOU are the man that can write 
insurance. 

IT IS A FACT that the following pages will help you 
to do it. 

ix 




A CHAPTER FOR BEGINNERS 

HE following chapter is not intended for 
the old wheelhorse in the business, and 
yet, it may be possible that even he may 
find a line or two that he might use to 
good advantage. This publication, while 
not complete by a good deal, would be 
still more incomplete were it sent out with no word of 
helpfulness to the young man who has chosen the pro- 
fession of Life Underwriter. 

To the beginner the whole scheme is more or less 
chaotic according to the instructions he has had from 
the general agent or others. He has a well defined idea 
that the successful solicitor makes a great deal of money 
and makes it easily. He is very apt to consider the 
business a snap. He has usually reached this idea from 
hearing some of the old-timers exchanging their ex- 
periences while bragging about this or that big deal, 
and feels that about all that is necessary in order to 
reach an income of several thousand dollars a year is to 
step out and write up a lot of fellows and pocket his 
commissions. It is true that that is the way to make 
big money, but it is not true that he has selected an oc- 
cupation that is a snap, or that can prove successful 
without he puts into the work the very best there is in 
him. Like every other occupation, it has two ends to it 
— ^the bottom and the top. He must understand and 
realize that the only road to the top begins at the bot- 
tom. He must start out with the determination to do 
the very best in his power. The very first step toward 



Objections and Answers 



success is for him to learn right at the outset to lean on 
himself. He must feel and know that it is possible for 
him to write insurance without the help of any man. He 
must realize that for a time it will come in slowly. He 
will soon learn, also, that the longer he remains in the 
business the greater is his ability to write insurance. If 
tmfortunately he has been instructed by an agent who 
is over sanguine, and sets out expecting to make big 
money right from the start, it will be much harder for 
him to score a success than it will if he reads and heeds 
the advice in this chapter. The one question is: *'How 
can I become a successful Life Insurance solicitor in the 
shortest possible time ? And following that is the thought. 
What constitutes a successful Life Insurance solicitor? 
We will answer the last question first. A successful 
Life Insurance solicitor is he who writes, not the largest 
volume of business, but he who writes the best class of 
business. If the beginner writes one application un- 
aided, that stays on the books, and is sold so honestly 
that the insured is pleased with his policy and is ever 
afterward a friend of the agent and the company; if he 
gets just one such the first week, he is a success. One 
application like that is worth more to the future of the 
agent than a thousand written by misrepresentation. 
One policyholder who proves to be a stayer and be- 
comes a friend of the agent and of the company, is a 
standing support and helper for all time, while one who 
has been deceived by the agent, who wrote his policy 
on the investment talk, or by any kind of misrepresenta- 
tion, is from the very moment that he discovers the 
fraud, an enemy both of the agent and of the company. 
Good, honest, clean work on the part of the agent means 
a steadily increasing number of friends and a growing 
business. 
The beginner should learn first that to begin right 



Objections and Answers 



is of much more importance than to begin swift. He 
should understand that his standing in the home office 
is not gauged by the amount of business he produces so 
much as by the class of business that he produces. He 
must learn that every time one of his policyholders 
lapses his policy, another has to be written to fill his 
place if the company is to go out of the year with an in- 
creased volume of business in force, and it is mighty hard 
to sell insurance for a company whose annual report 
shows a decreasing business. He want; to be a success 
and in order to reach tha: place in the profession he 
must look steadily to the future rather than to the pre- 
sent, and build up his business. 

The beginner is anxious to know if he can write 
insurance. If so, how shall he set about it ? What shall 
be his first movement and whom shall he tackle first, 
and hgj? shall he tackle his prospect? Before he enters 
upon the work at all, let him set up some rules of conduct 
and practice and stick to them first, last, and at all times. 
If he does this, he will succeed, otherwise he will fail as 
sure as fate. Make the following your rules of conduct 
and live up to them : 

First — I will be absolutely truthful. 

Second— I will write my insurance on the policy 
contract. 

Third — I will sell insurance for protection and not for 
profit to the policyholder. 

Fourth — If anybody asks me a question which I 
cannot answer, I will tell him I do not know, and not 
try to hatch up an answer that may be wrong. 

Fifth — I will so work and act that I will be a welcome 
visitor on any part of my field at any time. 

Sixth — I will under all circumstances and in all my 
work be Dead Square. 



Objections and Answers 



Lastly — I will have a heart to heart talk with at least 
three men a day on the question of Life Insurance. 

With these rules as your basis and a fair knowledge 
of the policy contracts which you are to sell, you are 
better equipped for business success than the crooked 
solicitor who has been at it for twenty years. 

Do not make the mistake of thinking you must 
know all about the business. The less you talk about 
the methods of the management of the home office 
affairs, the actuarial department, the bookkeeping de- 
partment and the medical department, the better for 
you. Your department is to get applications. Stick to 
that, and let the other fellows take care of their own 
affairs. 

Do not be afraid to tell the very first man you solicit 
that you are new in the business. Give him a talk like this : 

**Good morning, sir. My name is Springer. I have 
just started out in the life insurance business and intend 
to make it my life work. I represent the — —company, 
and about all I know about the business is that our 
company is all right and that life insurance is mighty 
good property to have. If you are not already over- 
insured I wish you would help me to write yourself up as 
a starter.** 

You may not get his application but you will get his 
attention and he will be interested in your success. 
If he says that he has all the insurance he wants, and 
you see that he means it, do not spoil your start by bor- 
ing him, but ask him as a personal favor if he will refer 
you to some one whom he knows that will probably be 
interested in the subject. Make it a rule to either make a 
policyholder or a helper out of every man you interview. 
Always be cheerful and smiling and sunshiny. Every- 
body has a smile for a smiling young man. 



Objections and Answers 



One of the things that the beginner universally experi- 
ences, and which is the hardest to overcome, is the dread 
of meeting on his field an old life insurance agent, of 
whom he has an inherent fear. There are some old-timers 
who seem to delight in *' doing up'* a beginner, and who 
also delight in jumping onto him in a crowd and making 
a laughing stock of him. Such a competitor can be 
downed in ten minutes, if the beginner has previously 
had a pointer or two for such an emergency. Here is the 
pointer. Try to remember it. He will usually start out 
by asking some question which seems simple, but which 
you are not supposed to know about, if indeed, he knows 
himself. He may ask you to tell him what the loading 
for expense is in your company. You are stuck and so 
is he if you turn the table this way : * ' I do not know, but 
if you do I wish you would tell me. '' He may keep on 
asking questions which are all Greek to you and at last 
you say to him and to the crowd : * * I am not so well posted 
as to the inside facts of life insurance as you must be 
from your long experience. But there are a few things 
which I do know and which seem to me to be the most 
important. I know that our company is all right and 
that it has faithfully kept every obligation promptly, 
and that its ratio of assets to liabilities is as great as any 
company doing business; that its policy contracts are 
plain and simple and that the guaranteed results are as 
good as any company doing business in the world. I am 
willing to compare the standing and record of our com- 
pany with any and all others at any time, and let all 
stand on their merits. But I am too new in the business 
to attempt to discuss the details of Life Insurance, which 
I hope to learn as time goes by, and learn them from 
gentlemen like yourself, who have been in the business 
for years.*' Such an answer pleasantly uttered does 
two things. It flatters the other fellow and keeps the 



Objections and Answers 



crowd with you which means victory for yourself and 
your company. You will win every time by admitting 
what you do not know rather than by boasting about 
what you do know. 

Familiarize yourself with your rate book and your 
policy contracts and the salient points of your company. 
Then read carefully the advice and pointers in these pages 
especially those under the head of ** Objections and 
Answers. " Stick to the rules of conduct laid out in this 
chapter; then get out and hustle for all there is in you and 
you will have no occasion to regret your chosen calling 
or worry about your income. 



V 



SYSTEMATIZE YOUR WORK 




HEN you are inclined to be dissatisfied 
with your profession, look about you and 
see how many men you can find whose 
salary exceeds your income and you will 
be surprised. The truth is that a suc- 
cessful life underwriter has a mighty 
good thing if he will only keep steadily at it. Of all the 
advice that we receive from time to time, I know of none 
better than that of making it a set rule to have a heart 
to heart talk with just three men a day. No more and 
no less. You just try that for one month steady and if 
you are not $ioo ahead by it, you may send your bill 
for expenses to the writer, and he will agree to — tell you 
what luck he had. 

By a ** heart to heart talk** I do not mean a short 
''feeler** and planning an interview, but an actual in- 
terview. I do not believe any good solicitor can do 
this and not average an application for every working 
day in the week. 

Yes, I know there are times when you cannot find 
any three men who can spare you two hours of their 
time every day unless it is by previous appointment. 
Therefore you may find it necessary to spend the first 
day on a new field in making appointments for inter- 
views. 

Do that, and each succeeding day make appoint- 
ments for the next day or evening, or even for three days 
or a week ahead. Keep a careful memorandum of these 
dates and keep the appointments promptly. Try this 
just for one month. As a rule the solicitor works too 



8 Objections and Answers 

much at haphazard. He will say to himself in the morn- 
ing : " I wonder who I can see today. " You are wasting 
precious hours. Be able to take your memorandum 
book out of yota* pocket just before you go to bed and 
say: '* Let me see. Tomorrow is the loth, who am I to 

see tomorrow? Ah! yes, Mr. at 10:30 a.m. Mr. 

at 4 p.m., and Mr. at 7 p.m. What's this? 

Gee! I most forgot that I promised to see Mr. — — at his 
home at i o'clock Wednesday, the loth, that's tomorrow. 
Well, I've got from i o'clock until 4 open and can see him. 
I'll ring him up on the 'phone and remind him of it." 
DonH you do it. Never, on your life, give a prospect an 
opportunity to cancel an interview over the 'phone. Be 
right there on the spot on time and remind him of the 
promised interview and see that you get it. Be systematic 
and so plan your time as to be kept busy. Try this plan 
once. It costs you nothing for the trial, and our word 
for it, you will be surprised at the results. 

The tendency of hundreds of life agents is to close 
one deal and consider it a good day's work, and then 
spend a day or two in aimlessly going around looking 
for another lead. Have the * ' lead ' ' already on your little 
book and get right after it. Know to a dead certainty 
what you are to do next, every day and every hour, and 
the **aps" will come in amazingly. 



CREATING THE DEMAND 



f ^s tX»VH-''*Xa tV *X> fYj 




i ;, >t* n, :)Li ^x^ eit^.^yS 



LD life solicitors differ as to the kind of a 
man who proves to be the ** toughest pro- 
spect. " Some say it is the man who will 
look at you like a stone image and never 
open his mouth nor change his coun- 
tenance; some say it is the Smart Aleck 
who thinks he knows all about life insurance, and can 
tell you anywhere from one to a dozen instances where- 
in he has been **beat'' by some insurance company, 
or agent; some say it is the indifferent man who does not 
need a policy because he has enough to take care of his 
family if he should die, and another says that the tough- 
est prospect between the sphynx who won't talk and the 
self-satisfied man who ** don't need if is the man who 
brazenly declares that he had to dig for what he got and 
let those left behind dig for themselves. From these 
solicitors' standpoint these opinions appear to be cor- 
rect, but as a matter of fact, they are all wrong. They 
have missed the kernel in the nut, which is the fact that 
no matter how tough the prospect may be, there are two 
essentials that must not be lost sight of for a moment, 
viz: First, the agent himself must be able to create a 
demand for the policy and second, supply that demand. 
The first is s6metimes hard to do — the second always 
easy. Therefore, your first and chief^labor is to create a 
demand for the goods you are selling. 

Millions of insurance has been lost because the first 
crack ou of the box put the prospect on the defensive 
and the agent on the offensive There is vastly more 
importance in the first question you ask your prospect 



10 Objections and Answers 

than in all that follows. And the very manner in which 
you ask that question is the keynote to the whole 
situation. 

Never ask a man, **Do you carry any Life Insur- 
ance?" Now, methinks I hear you say: '*Why not? 
That seems to me to be the very first thing to find out. *' 

True, but you put it wrong. In these days every 
man from the millionaire to the dockwholloper knows 
what life insurance is. Therefore, put your question 
like this: *' Where do you carry your life insurance?*' 
Not, **Do you" carry any life insurance?" 

There is a reason for this. Always assume that 
your prospect does carry life insurance. His reply, no 
matter what it is, is boimd to outline, in a measure at 
least, exactly what you are up against. It is certain to 
disclose the trend of his thought on the subject. If he 
carries either fraternal or old line insurance, lie will 
promptly say so, for the reason that no man is insured 
that is not proud to say so, for he knows that you know 
that it is the right thing to do. If he carries none, nine 
times out of ten he tells you why. Either he carried it 
and lapsed, or he don't believe in it at all, or he has been 
swindled by some agent (God save the mark, and punish 
the liar who has deliberately *'done him up" by misre- 
presentation) or he will admit that it is a good thing but 
he cannot afford it. In any event, almost without excep- 
tion, his answer to the question, put as suggested, will 
disclose the ground upon which the battle is to be fought 
out. For, be it remembered, that every **ap." that 
reaches the home office represents a contest and a 
victory. 

Again, never approach a man timidly, as though 
you contemplated a raid on his henroost, neither apolo- 
getically as though you were ashamed to come out 
squarely and disclose your business. Your profession 



Objections and Answers ii 

is a most honorable one and you have a right to be proud 
of it. Get that fact firmly into your nut and keep it 
there, for right there lies the difference between a ** Front 
Door Man" and a **Back Door Man." 



THE WIPE WHO OBJECTS 




N nearly every instance where the wife ob- 
jects to the husband's application for a 
life policy (and strange as it may ap- 
pear, there are not a few good women who 
do object), the reason of her opposition 
rests on one of four causes. 
First, she has never had the plan or policy truth- 
fully explained to her, but assimies that the husband 
gets no personal returns, and must pay as long as he 
lives and **die to beat it, '* or 

Second, she looks upon the premitim payments as 
an unnecessary and needless expenditure, arguing that 
the annual cost will deprive herself or her children or 
both, of the necessities of life, and they need the money 
now, or 

Third, she really and truly thinks that it is a gamble 
on his life and that any money which is tendered in 
payment after he is dead is blood money, not bread 
money, or 

Fourth, she is too narrow minded to listen to an 
explanation or so **sot in her way'* that she would not 
admit it if she were convinced of its value. This latter, 
however, is not frequently encountered. The life agent 
who can meet and win over to his support the woman 
objector is to be congratulated. And yet, it is a fact 
that the scheme of life insurance possesses so many 
features which, if properly presented, appeal to the best 
that lies in the heart of motherhood and all true woman- 
hood, that all that is required to win out is not to oppose 
her opinions at first, but to enlist her interest along other 

12 



Objections and Answers 13 

lines. Flattery is a weapon extremely dangerous and 
has often ** queered'' the whole thing because a woman's 
intuition is keener than a razor, and she is too sharp and 
too good a judge of himian nature to be cajoled by 
sophistry or influenced by flattery. Every woman on 
earth likes the truth from a man, and a good square 
talk will go, where anything else will fail. To begin 
with, then, first ascertain the grounds of her objections 
and give her opinions respectful attention. 

Let us here put a hypothetical case. A case that is 
met with in the work of every life underwriter. 

We will assume that the husband has, like Adam 
of old, thrown the responsibility on the woman, by ad- 
mitting that he wants insurance but says: **My wife is 
dead against it and I would not do anything against her 
wishes." You are tempted to smile at him for, judging 
by the last part of his statement, he is certainly a model 
husband — but don't smile. Look him straight in the 
eye and say: *'I am sure you love your wife and am 
glad you believe in insurance. Kindly introduce me 
and let me explain it to her, for surely she does not fully 
understand it." He can scarcely object to this and you 
are invited in and properly or improperly introduced. 
If the introduction is improper it's your own fault, for 
it is up to you to tell him how he is to present you. Tell 
him to simply introduce you as a gentleman who wants 
to talk business, but not to mention the business. You 
meet the lady and if you are worth your salt you know 
instantly the kind of a battle you have before you.^ 
First look straight into her eyes but don't stare at her. 
Your first question is this : 

**Can you spare me a few minutes out of your busy 
life, to go over a business proposition which I have 
been discussing with your husband, and upon which we 
want your opinion and judgment? (Do you see the 



14 Objections and Answers 

point?) She yields invariably and in all probability 
asks you the nature of the business. 

The battle is on and you are expected to fire the first 
shot. It must not be a broadside nor a fizzle. How 
to hold her attention and not at once say *' life insurance " 
is the rub. Knowing this you pleasantly remark: 
** Thank you. I never hear a man say that he wants to 
' talk it over with his wife/ that I am not reminded of the 
wise man who said, that ' the basis of the American Re- 
public is founded in the American home, ' and it is true, 
too. 

**You show me a home where the husband relies 
on his wife's judgment and seeks her advice, and I will 
show you a successful home. My business is of more im- 
portance to the home than any other business in the 
world, and it is one that appeals to the wife and mother 
as much or more than to the husband and father. But 
the chief difficulty which I encounter is the man who 
knows it all, and never takes his wife into his confidence 
on business matters. This is especially true when the 
business is like mine, of a nature that interest both sides 
of the house. So I am glad to have an opportunity to 
explain it to you." (She listens and wonders what you 
are driving at and you go on) . 

*'If I came here and offered to sell your husband a 
farm worth $2000 and told him he could pay for it in 
twenty installments of $100 a year, and that if he should 
happen to di i before the farm was paid for after the first 
payment was made, I would cancel the debt and deed 
the farm to you. what would you say ? You would advise 
him to buy it, would you not ? ' ' 

Hesitatingly she replies, *'Why yes, I should think 
so.*' 

*' Sure you would. So would any woman as intelligent 
as yourself. Now, suppose I put up $2000 in cash and 



Objections and Answers 15 

tell your husband he can have it on twenty annual pay- 
ments, and if he lives twenty years, I would give him 
$2000 in gold, but if by any chance he should happen 
to die after making the first payment, I would cancel 
the contract, and pay you right then $2000 in cash, 
wouldn't you think it a splendid way to save money and 
at the same time guarantee that he could not lose it by 
death?'' 

She will agree with you and the rest is easy. True, 
she may put up some of her cherished prejudices against 
life insurance, but you smilingly tell her that that is be- 
cause she had never before had an opportunity to under- 
stand the other side of life insurance. Before she knows 
it she is excusing herself for opposing insurance, ** because 
she never understood it before." 



MAKING A '^COMBINE" 



iigiffiS^-^S EARLY every life agent does more or less 

work in the rural districts, in which he 
almost invariably uses the assistance of 
a '* Combine.'* The agent who has the 
judgment and nerve to get the right 
** Combine*' for a particular locality is a 



;^ini7i*2i:; 



predestined winner. Some sad mistakes are made in 
selecting this helper, and a few practical suggestions 
along that line will not lessen the value of this publica- 
tion. Having selected the locality and procured a room, 
look the town over a bit, go into at least two places and 
get acquainted with the proprietors. Telling them your 
business, make a few inquiries regarding the field, and 
get as close to them as possible so that when you drop in 
the next day or the next, they will say ** hello" and ask 
you how you are getting along. The idea is this : You are 
in a strange town and right at the outset you want to 
make one or two acquaintances who are sufficiently 
interested in you to inquire as to your success. It gives 
you a *' homey feeling *' and that is a whole lot. You drop 
in at the bank and ascertain if the banker is acting as 
agent for any old line company. If so, and he seems 
enthusiastic over his company, congratulate him, wish 
him success and move on. Find out by careful inquiry 
who is the leading farmer in the commtmity. What you 
want for a ** combine** is a man of absolute honesty; one 
who has not been canvassing for anything amongst the 
farmers. He need not be a great talker, but a well- 
known, conserva ive man, whose word and advice has 
weight. In every flock of sheep is a bell wether, or leader. 

i6 



Objections and Answers 17 

What you want to find is the bell wether of the com- 
munity. No canvasser, peddler or stock buyer or cream 
separator agent, but a man whose opinions and advice 
his neighbors seek. Having found the right man hire 
him. Don't be afraid of it — pay him his price to take 
his team and assist you to write insurance. Having 
struck a bargain and agreed upon when you will start 
out, spend the afternoon or evening in grooming him for 
the work. Post him thoroughly on your company and 
its policies and above all ehe tell him how to introduce 
you to the prospects If he is a jovial fellow, he might 
start in with: *' Hello Bill, come over here, we want to fix 
you so you won't die,'* or *' Hello, you old stick-in-the- 
mud, come out here, we want to kill you.'' This will 
not do. 

I have had a *' combine" stop a gang of men working 
on the road and yell out: *' Hello boys, how many of 
you fellers is worth more dead than alive? Take a rest, 
we want to insure your lives." You must get onto his 
lines and post him thoroughly how to be the right kind of 
a helper and earn his wages. It will take a day or two to 
get him where he will not make any bad breaks, but if 
you have not miscued on your man and he is willing to 
work, you will get applications. Teach him when to 
break into the talk by watching you for a prearranged 
signal, and when to stop by the same token. A good 
way for him to introduce you, and one that wil fit every 

case is this: **Mr. let me introduce you to Mr. 

who has, in my judgment, a mighty good thing, and 

I have brought him to you because I am sure if you take 
it you would not make a mistake." Never let him at- 
tempt to talk insurance in a crowd of two or three. 
Never try to write insurance from a buggy seat, with the 
farmer leaning against the wheel. Always get into the 
house by some pretext or another. Never try to write a 



1 8 Objections and Answers 

man when he is busy J&xing a break-down in machinery, 
or otherwise especially busy or irritated. If there is an 
auction or a funeral or a picnic in a neighborhood, keep 
away until it's over. If your ** combine " gets the dumps 
because business is not coming fast enough to suit him, 
j oily him up . Never get blue or lose your patience. Keep 
cheerful, keep sweet, and keep busy. 




HIS FIRST LESSON 

HE following story, which is true in 
every particular, illustrates the truth of 
the old adage, properly paraphrased to 
suit the occasion, that *' Where igno- 
rance gets business 'tis folly to be wise.*' 
It is scarcely necessary to add that 
this beginner became a successful life underwriter and 
is today well up to the front rank in the profession. 
He had been influenced to give up a steady and lucra- 
tive position and enter the insurance field by a relative 
who was an officer of a life company. The General 
Manager of the company took him out on the field to 
*' start him out/' 

On the train going out to their destination the new 
man tried to get some faint idea of the nature of the 
business which had been presented to him in such glaring 
colors, but the Manager was intent on a card game, and 
when they landed in town the new man was in absolute 
darkness as to the work before him. The Manager who 
had relatives in town went to their home for a visit and 
the beginner was left to drift for himself until the next 
day. 

This did not suit him and he decided to find some 
one from whom he might learn something about the 
business. He strolled about town for a time, but while 
the people seemed to be hospitable enough and bowed 
to him politely, nobody asked his business or even in- 
timated that they wanted life insurance, and he finally 
decided to call on the best attorney in the town and get 
some pointers. He went into the office and luckily 

19 



20 Objections and Answers 

found the attorney not only affable and pleasant, but not 
at the moment very busy. This is what happened : 

''Good afternoon, Mr. ; I saw your name on the 

door and took the liberty of dropping in and getting 
acquainted and possibly boring you a while.'* 

Arising and shaking hands with the visitor the attorney 
motioned him to a seat and said: *'How do you do? 
What business can I do for you? " 

*'It is the other way,'' replied the agent, **the ques^ 
tion is, what business can I do with you? My name 
is and I am in a boat. My trouble is not of a na- 
ture to demand the services of an attorney, and I want 
to say in advance that there is no retainer in it for you." 

* ' Well, what is the nature of your business ? ' ' asked the 
lawyer, smiling pleasantly. 

*' You've got me there. I do not know the first 
darned thing about the business that I have started out 
in. The fact is, I have been persuaded to engage in the 
business of life insurance and I suppose the first thing 
for me to do is to find out how much insurance you carry 
and by some hook or crook get you to take more." 

''What company do you represent?" asked the at- 
torney, laughing heartily. 

"It is my intention to sometime represent the 

company, but as yet I have scarcely arisen to the dignity 
of a representative." 

The attorney roared with laughter and asked: "Which 
system does your company operate on? The old line 
or assessment plan?" 

The agent hesitated a moment, slowly scratched 
his head and replied: "Blamed if I know. Whichever is 
best is it, I suppose." He was in dead earnest and 
could not understand why the lawyer laughed and held 
his sides, for he had a sneaking idea that there was not 
anything exceptionally funny in the business. 



Objections and Answers 21 

Recovering his breath, the lawyer asked: **What 
made you call on me? '* 

**Well, I saw your sign and am a believer in signs on 
general principles and walked in/' It was evident 
that the lawyer was perplexed as well as amused, but 
the agent went on : ' ' The truth is I do not know as much 
about life insurance as a pig does about a ruffled shirt. I 
was never told a thing except that there was big money 
in the business, and I want you to sit over there where I 
can look at you and ask you about a hundred questions 
and incidentally write you a policy or application or 
whatever they call it/' 

That was the gospel truth. He had not the faintest 
idea of the business. But the attorney proved to be 
well up on the subject, and it was from him that the 
agent got his first real information. 

**Does your company put up a reserve?'* asked the 
lawyer. 

**If that is the proper thing to do, I suppose they 
do it," replied the agent naively. 

*'Do they collect an annual premiimi or collect for 
every death?" 

**I do not know what they do in the long run, but 
I know that I have to collect eight dollars membership 
fee or I don't get anything out of it," replied the agent 
innocently, and the lawyer nearly had a fit. 

**Well," replied the lawyer after he had recovered 
his breath, **you represent an assessment association." 

**Thanks," replied the agent heartily, ''I am glad 
to learn that much anyhow." 

* ' Have you any literature relating to your association ?" 

*'They loaded me down with a lot of stuff that is 
in my grip, but here is something which may have some 
bearing upon the subject, though I have not had time 
to examine it." Looking it over carefully he handed it 



22 Objections and Answers 

to the lawyer with the remark that it seemed to be a 
report of some kind or another. 

'*0h, yes, this is the last annual report of your asso- 
ciation and it seems to be pretty good. I carry old 
line insurance myself and have never been much of a 
lover of assessment insurance.*' 

**What is the difference between the two?'* asked 
the agent earnestly. 

*'They are not at all alike. One assesses for every 
death and the other charges a fixed premium payable 
yearly.** 

*'Well, if I am going into the business I want the 
best. Which do you think the best? They are both 
good, are they not?** 

*' There is a great difference of opinion on that subject 
and I do not care to go on record at present. My age 
is 31 ; what will it cost me for a thousand dollar policy 
in your association? ** 

. *'If the age has anything to do with it, I never heard 
of it. But here is a schedule or program or rate book, 
whatever they call it, and perhaps you can figure that 
out for yourself.** 

The lawyer looked at the rate book and said that 
it would cost him $14.20 a thousand at his age. 

*'Does that include my eight dollars?** asked the 
agent eagerly. 

We will not enlarge upon this interview. Suffice 
it that the attorney saw at once that there were the ele- 
ments of success in that young fellow and at once took 
an interest in him. Their friendship deepened as time 
went on and the two are still living and inseparable 
friends, and often have a good laugh over the reminis^ 
censes of the agent *s first lesson in life insurance. 

The meat in this chapter lies in the suggestion that 
no matter what a young man expects to do or however 



Objections and Answers 23 

discouraging it may appear, he can get started if he goes 
at it right. 

The chances are that if that beginner had waited 
until the next day to take his first lesson from the Man- 
ager, he would have learned less in a whole week than 
he did at his first interview with the attorney. The 
other lesson to be drawn from this is that the beginner 
got busy right from the start, and that spells success in 
double capitals. 



THE TWISTER 




do justice to this pernicious specimen 
of the genus homo would require a vo- 
cabulary of greater length and variety 
than the writer ever expects to possess. 
Of one thing we are certain; he is self 
made, for neither God nor the devil ever 
had any hand in his creation. He is neither of hu- 
man nor divine origin. His only human attribute is 
the science of lying, which he has reduced to a fine art. 
He would not know the truth if he met it face to face in 
broad daylight. He is as smooth as greased lightning. 
If all the honesty in his body was tried out into a juice, 
there would not be enough moisture to lay the dust on 
a flea*s back. He has not the manliness or ability to 
create a demand for a life policy, and therefore his scheme 
is to go about hunting for some easy-minded man who 
has a life policy and then proceed to ** knock it out" and 
replace it with an inferior policy and pocket his ill-gotten 
commissions. He is as devoid of conscientious scruples 
as is the buzzard that fouls its own nest. He is of ques- 
tionable ancestry and doubtful destiny. 

Affable, attractive, and boastful of his own *' great 
honesty,*' he, by reason of long practice, is able to 
hoodwink his victim, and leaves behind him the trail 
of a serpent reeking with slime and stench. Never de- 
pendable or honest, he soon runs his course and is dis- 
missed by his employer, when he puts up a good front, 
contracts with some other company and sets out again on 
his work of destruction on some other field. 

He is a wrecker rather than a builder; for he often 

24 



Objections and Answers 25 

succeeds in unsettling the policyholder's confidence in 
his protection without selling him another policy, caus- 
ing his prospect to lapse and die uninsured, in which case 
he becomes a deliberate robber of the vilest type, for he 
has robbed a widow and her fatherless children. The 
twister is worse than the highwayman. 



THE FOOL FAILURE 




f^^^^^aiNE day the writer was talking insur- 
ance to a farmer during the noon hour. 
We were out under the trees and the 
farmer was reading the sample policy. 
The farmer was asking questions when- 
ever any part of the policy contract was 
not clear to him. A fellow, who hung out in a shanty on 
a piece of swamp land adjoining, had been watching the 
two of us out under the tree, until finally his curiosity 
got the better of his laziness and he climbed over the 
fence and approached us. He came up and laid down 
at full length on his stomach with his palms under his chin 
and his toes digging into the grass. He had not said a 
word when he arrived, nor did the farmer even notice his 
presence. We talked along quietly, the prospect asking 
a question and I replying to it both apparently oblivious 
of the lazy lout on the grass. But I knew very well that 
the curiosity that had drawn him over the fence was 
bound, sooner or later, to draw him into the deal and I 
determined to **put his hide on the fence*' the first break 
he made. He listened carefully until he learned that 
we were talking life insurance, and then in a drawling, 
nasal tone he let out his pent up thought. **Life insur- 
ance is a damned fraud,'' was his remark as he continued 
to dig his toes into the grass. Without waiting for the 
next remark, but turning around so our noses were about 
three inches apart, I began. 
Do you live near here?" 
Right there by the creek." 
Do you own a farm there?" 

26 



it 



it 



ii 



Objections and Answers 27 

"No." 

'Do you own a house and lot?'' 

/No/' 

*Do you own any property at all?" 

'No." 

* Did you ever own any ? " 

'No." 

' Have you a family ? " 

'Yes. Wife and eleven kids." 

' Do they work out ? ' ' 

'Some of them do." 

'Do they help support you?" 

"Yes, some." 

'Do you have steady work?" 

'No, only odd jobs." 

"Are you in good health?" 

"Yes, never sick." 

"Have you any money in the bank?" 

' No, takes all I earn to live on." 

' Did you ever save any money ? " 

"No." 

"You are pretty near a dead loss, aren't you? " 

"How so?" 

"Well, I'll tell you how so. Here is a farmer who 
by his own industry has made a comfortable home for 
himself and family; paid his debts like a man; sent his 
children to school, well fed and well clothed; has paid 
for this eighty, and bought the eighty adjoining, upon 
which he has a debt of $2000. He has figured it out 
that if he should die before this last eighty is paid for 
his family might find it hard to clear the home of the 
mortgage which covers both eighties. He is sitting here 
and figuring on the kind of life insurance he will take for 
a $2000 policy to cover his debt and secure the farm 
clear of all enctunbrances, if he should die. Here you 



28 Objections and Answers 

come and of all things living you are the least fitted 
to advise. You never had a dollar; your family is nearly 
starved ; you are too lazy to work ; you are a living failure ; 
you have no sense or education and yet you put your 
nose into his business and try to keep him from insuring 
by the remark that Life Insurance is a damned fraud. 
You are the fraud. Your wife knows it, your children 
know it, and your neighbors know it. You would be 
more at home down there with those hogs in the mudhole 
than here on a respectable man's lawn. If you are not 
ashamed of yourself you ought to be.*' 

''Go plumb to thunder, you dam dude,'' he said as he 
rolled over, got on his long legs, climbed the fence and 
went slowly back to his shack. 

The farmer laughed until he cried and called his wife 
out and told her about it and she joined in. 

When it was time for the farmer to go to his field, I 
had his ** ap. '' for $2000, Twenty Pay Life, and a note as 
good as gold. 



THE SMART ALECK 




HERE do you carry your life insurance ? '* 
*'In my own pocket, by Gosh! You 
can't fool me, mister. I am too old a 
bird to be caught by chaff. I've cut 
my wisdom teeth, I have. " 

**Is that so? Then you are neither 
ace high, deuce low, nor game in the pack. You must be 
the joker." 

''Bet your life I am. I take both bowers and the 
ace in this little game of euchre that you insurance fel- 
lows are dealing out these days. You can't beat me. 
You better shtiffle along now before you spend any time 
on me with your palaver. " 

*'No, sir, I am going to stay in the game until I make 
you 'show your hand!' You say you carry your in- 
surance in your own pocket. That is a poor policy. 
I can fix you out with a better one." 

"You can't fix me out with any kind of a policy. I 
am not on the market. I know all about the life insur- 
ance business. You fellows go riding around, dressed 
up every day, feeding at the two dollar hotels, and have 
a snap. I bet you would make $5 clean if I let you 
write me up, and that's more than I'd make in two days 
by honest work.' ' 

"You are on all right or else you are a good guesser. 
If I write you up I'll make $4.80. " 

I thought so; I'd like to make money that easy. " 
Suppose you try it? I'll give you $4.80 for every 
$1000 of paid for and accepted business you will get 
for our company." 

29 



t( 



(< 



30 Objections and Answers 

'*Do you make an agent of every one who takes a 
policy?*' 

**No, sir. Only the smart ones. " 

**So you think I am smart, eh? *' 

** I don't think it, I know it. " 

'* How's that?" 

*' You said you knew all about life insurance. I have 
been in the business twenty years and I don't know half 
of it yet. So you must be smarter than lightning. 
That's how." 

*'0h, I don't know all about it, but I know enough to 
steer clear of it, and that's going some, ain't it ? " 

**Tell me what you do actually know about it. It 
won't take you long and I might learn something. " 

*'Ha! Ha! That's a hot one and you handed it to 
me in good shape, but you never feazed me. I'll tell 
you something I know about it. First, it's a htimbug. 
And it's highway robbery and a regular confidence game, 
and a gold brick. Nobody but a durn fool would buy 
it." 

*' That's why I came to see you about it. " 

'^What? Ha! Ha! That's another right off the 
bat. Who sent you to me ? " 

**Sam. Tompkins." 

*'Sam. Tompkins? Why Sam. and me hasn't spoke 
for three years. He is the biggest fool in seven counties 
and don't know enough to eat when he's hungry, but he 
thinks he does just the same. We fit over that line fence 
for three years. What did he say about me ? " 

'^That's what he said." 

**What's what he said?" 

'*He said you were the only man in the county that 
claimed to know it all, but didn't know enough to salt 
a cow; that you did not know enough about farming to 
plant potatoes in the right month. That the only way 



Objections and Answers 31 

I 

you get along at all was by watching him and your 

neighbors and following suite. That you even copied , 
their mistakes. He told me how he and Joe Smith got 

you to sow mustard in 1903 and that '' i 

** Hold on there, mister ! That story is an infernal lie. 

I sowed that mustard by " j 

** Yes, that's just what he said. ** ' 

''What's what he said?*' ^ ] 
* * He said that you would say it was an infernal lie. ' ' 

**He's a backbiting puppy. Did he tell you I'd buy \ 
a policy on my life ? " 

**Well, I should say not. He said he would not buy 

one just because if he did and you heard of it, you'd ; 

buy one too, and he didn't care to belong to any company ] 

that would take such risks as you are. He said if you \ 
took a policy, you would lapse it on the second payment, 

and go bellyaching around saying that you had found j 

out that the company was rotten. And he warned me ] 

against trusting you, for your note was not worth a cent ' 
and you had no credit at the bank, and couldn't buy a 

setting hen at an auction without having to go out of \ 

the county to get a signer on your note, and yet you ' 

ought to have a policy, for if you died the whole brood [ 

of young ones headed by the old hen — ^your wife — ^would j 

be on the county, and " 

**Hold on there, mister, did you believe that stuff?" • 
^1** Of course, I did, until I found out. " 
^1^ /'Found out what?" 

I '; ' ' I found out the facts. " 1 

i:"Where?" ! 

|:g/* At the bank down town. " i 

h/*What did the banker say?" i 

"Oh, not much. I stepped in and told him what I ■ 

had heard about you and he just sat down and laughed \ 

until the tears run down his cheeks. That kind of riled i 



32 Objections and Answers 

me up and I said that I didn't see anything funny about 
it. What I wanted to know was if your note was good 
if I sold you a policy on time, and he just yelled. Finally 
he got his wind and said: 'Excuse me old man for laugh- 
ing but that is a joke on a joker. You want to know if 
Silas Carpenter's paper is good at this bank. Well, 
you get the paper and bring it here and I'll cash it for 
any amount from ten to ten thousand dollars, and if he 
takes a policy with you, you'll get about twenty more 
that will swear by it because Si. Carpenter took it. 
Why, he is the best all around farmer, friend, and neigh- 
bor in this part of the state, but he is an odd genius, and 
conservative. But I know your company is all right and 
I really think he ought to carry $5000 and I'll give you a 
letter to him, ' and he gave me this letter. Read it for. 
yourself." 

Si. took the letter and read it slowly out loud. It read : 

*' Friend Si.: — I honestly believe you ought to carry 
$5000 or $10,000 life insurance in some good company 
and I know this company and the bearer to be all 
right. I bought $5000 of him six years ago and it is 
first class, 

*' Yours, 

Graslie." 

"Why in the devil didn't you give me this letter on the 

start?" 

** Because, I wanted to see your hand, as I told you. " 

** Well, come into the house. It's your deal. " 

It was a $5000, Twenty Year Endowment, spot cash, 

and the banker got XX. 



SQUELCHING A *^ BUTTER-IN" 




N all the multitude of vexatious happenings 
that go to make up the experience of the 
life underwriter, there is nothing more 
exasperating than the man who *' butts 
in.*' To keep sweet under the aggravat- 
ing prods of this meddlesome nuisance re- 
quires a spirit almost sublime in its strength, for if ever 
there is a time when a swift kick is deemed excusable, it 
is when he breaks into the talk with his senseless jargon. 
But he is certain to appear and when he does, the time 
has arrived for the solicitor to ** count ten before he 
speaks.'* But, thank the Lord, even the ** Butter-in" 
can be squelched and so thoroughly shut up that he will 
retreat like a whipped cur. You ask, **How can it be 
done ? " and I know of no better reply to your inquiry than 
to relate the following narrative : 

A life underwriter of long experience was one day 
in close conversation with a country merchant in the 
latter's office. There was a $5000, Twenty Year En- 
dowment under consideration and, while the deal was 
far from being "closed," the merchant was sufficiently 
interested to put aside his work and give the solicitor his 
full attention. You will readily understand the pro- 
gress made when I tell you that the merchant had begtm 
to ask questions. The talk was confidential and the 
conditions and circiunstances propitious. The merchant 
had just made the statement that it looked good to him 
and had asked, * * Who is your examining physician here ? ' ' 
when there was an interruption. It came in the shape 
of a tall, gaunt, hatchet-faced man whose nose was as 

33 



34 Objections and Answers 

sharp as a needle, and whose little blue eyes twinkled 
from under a pair of eyebrows an inch long, and whose 
voice was as rasping as a buzz saw. Intuitively the 
agent read the new comer from skin to marrow, with one 
keen glance. The farmer came slowly through the door 
and speaking to the merchant, and utterly ignoring the 
agent, and with no thought of apology for the interrup- 
tion, said, * ' Mornin' Ed, , bizzy? ' ' The merchant, himself 
put out by the unceremonious entrance into his private 
office, but being a man of business and not wishing to 
offend, replied: 

**Good morning, Abe. Yes, I am quite busy for a 
few minutes. If your business is not very important I 
wish you would take a cigar and sit down in the store 
a few minutes, until I get through with this gentle- 
man." 

Did **Abe'* accept the cigar and go out as invited? 
Yes; that is, he accepted the cigar, pulled out his jack- 
knife and carefully cut the end, hunted up a match, 
spit out about an ounce of bootjack chewing tobacco, lit 
his cigar, and said : ** Business ain't so pressin* but that I 
kin wait er while, but V\\ set here in this rocker. You 
just go ahead with your figgerin' and don't pay no 'ten- 
tion to me, " and down he flopped into the vacant rocker 
facing the two men and began to puff smoke like a switch 
engine. 

Suppressing his disgust the agent turned toward his 
prospect and took up the interrupted conversation by an- 
swering his last question. ''Dr. McArthur is our regu- 
lar examiner here, ** he said, and the merchant bowed and 
said, "He is all right.*' The fool in the rocker at once 
pricked up his ears. Having heard the word ** Doctor" 
he squeaked out, * * Ain't nobody sick are they ? ' ' Nobody 
replied and the agent pulled his **ap." 

** What is your full name? " he asked. 



Objections and Answers 35 

*' Edwin Lansing Manning/' replied the merchant, 
and barring interruptions the deal was as good as closed. 
As he was writing the name the man in the rocker 
squeaked again; **By Heck, Ed., IVe knowed you sense 
you wore didies and that's the fust time I ever heard 
your full handle. Sounds odd, don't it ? '* 

His interruption was again ignored. 

The agent had already filled in the address, occu- 
pation, etc. , and asked, * ' Where were you born ? ' ' Before 
the merchant could reply the man in the rocker snorted : 
**He was born on the old Dan. Tompkins place in that 
old log house by the crick, and I 'member the time like a 
book f er I went f er the doctor and the old mare shied at 
a hog 'n threw me hed fust inter the mud 'n strained my 
leg fearful. I don't believe I ever got over it either, fer it 
bothers me yit like hell when it storms. ' ' 

Still ignoring the interruption the agent went quietly 
on. ''What date were you born?" he asked. ''March 
14th, 1859," replied the merchant shifting uneasily in 
his chair. 

"Yer oJ0f, Ed., yer way off on that date," squeaked 
the ass in the rocker. " It was the year after yer dad tuk 
up that homested and he cum here the fall of the big 
flood and that was in '60; I happen to know, yer want 
born till the spring of '61 ; you broke out about the same 
time the war did." And he laughed like a choked goat 
over his own wit. The merchant made a deprecatory 
wave of his hand toward "Abe" and was evidently irri- 
tated, but thank heaven, he paid no further attention to 
the interruption, and of course the date had gone down 
and before "Abe" had ceased to chuckle at his own wit 
the agent was asking in a low voice the next qtiestion. 

"Do you carry any insurance in this company?" 
No, " was the reply. 
How much insurance do you carry? In what 



n 
It 



36 Objections and Answers 

companies and when taken?*' was the next question, 
and the prospect began to tell. 

**Two thousand in the taken four 

years ago. Three thousand in the taken 

six years ago ; one thou '* 

*'Yer ofiE thar, Ed. By Heck, you never took in- 
surance on this buildin' six 37'eer ergo, coz Chet Stoddard 
and me hawled the logs to the mill fer the lumber five 
yeer ergo this winter.'' And Abe got up and pounded 
the desk with his fist to emphasize the statement. Mr. 
Manning arose and confronted the speaker. ** Sit down, 
Abe, and please don't interrupt. I am not talking Fire 
Insurance, but Life Insurance, " he said mildly. 

The crisis was on, and none knew it better than the 
agent, but he was wise and waited. Abe sprang out 
of his chair, laid down the half- smoked cigar, and 
launched a tirade at the merchant that nothing could 
stop. *'What," he yelled. ** Life Insurance? Say, Ed., 
yer ain't tuk leave of yer senses hev yer? Thot ye red 
the papers. Ain't ye seen what them * Big Four, ' as they 
call 'em, hes been doin' ? Stealing billuns 'n billuns of 
money an' spendin' it in yotts, 'n private cars, 'n on wine 
'n fast wimmin. Don't yer no thet life insurance hes ben 
proved the biggest fraud ever per-per-perpotatoed on a 
unsuspectin' publik? It's rotten as punken 'n don't yer 
tutch it. 

*'Be yer a dum fool, Ed.? Look rite here to hum 'n 
yer kin see how it works. What happened when Will. 
Fletcher died, leaven' a wife and three kids to starve? 
Will, tuk out a policy 'n didn't live two years and they 
never got a cent coz the company said he had collapsed 
on his policy. Not a dtmi cent, by Heck! < 

*' Who's takin' care of Ann Jackson sense John dide? 
The county, by Heck! 'n you no it, and it was proved 
by the books that when John dide he was a social member 



Objections and Answers 37 

of the Woodmen in good standin*. Look at Zru. Har- 
rington. Did she get a dxim cent when '* 

But right here the very thing happened that the 
agent feared. Mr. Manning got mad. It was evident 
that he contemplated immediate physical action, and at 
any cost that must be averted. 

The agent took one loving glance at the half written 
*'ap. '' and placing his hand firmly but caressingly on 
the prospect's shoulder, thus keeping him in his seat, he 
turned a smiling face upon his tormentor and opened 
up on him as follows : 

*'My friend, I am glad to meet a gentleman who 
has some original ideas, and is not afraid to express them. 
(Here he slightly kicked his prospect under the table and 
resiimed:) *' Please sit down. Have another cigar and 
let's talk it over. You seem to be opposed to life insur- 
ance on general principles.** 

You bet I be." 

Did you ever carry a policy on your life? '* 

Not by a dtmi site." 

Did you ever try to get a policy? " 

Yes, but the fool doctor turned me down coz my 
father died of assmy." 

**Well, that doctor was all off. Any man to look 
at your splendid build ought to know you were an ex- 
ceptionally good risk . " 

Abe brightened up a bit and said boastfully : * ' Never 
seen a sick day in my life." The agent continued to 
smile and with a sly wink at his prospect (for you see 
he had to keep hold of both ends of the string) said: 
** There have been a great many changes in the policy con- 
tracts during the last twenty years. They are much bet- 
ter than they used to be . No doubt you have noticed it . " 
**Be they? I hain't paid much attention to 'em sense 
I found out they was all frauds." 



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38 Objections and Answers 

* * When did you think you found that out , my friend ? ' ' 

**When me and Jim Cornell was blackballed in the 
0. U. W. at Colimibus. That^s when." 

*' Did you ever learn why you were blackballed? " 

**No, the dirni fools never sed why 'n none of us could 
ever pump it out of 'em. But I no why they black- 
balled Jim. Thar was a good deal of talk about him 
sellin' two dozen chickens to the meat man the day after 
John Baw's hen roost was robbed a year or so afore his 
name went into the lodge, but I ain't castin* no reflec- 
tions." 

**Well, why should that have anything to do with 
you ? They didn't say you stole the chickens, did they ? ' ' 
**Not mutch ! they dassent. But old woman Benson 
went cacklin' round like a hen with the pips, and said 
it was funny how we had chickens for dinner the next 
Sunday. And my old woman made two new fether 
pillers erbout the same time, 'n Jim 'n me was alius 
thicker'n moUasses in winter, and all this dum fool talk 
hadn't blowed over when they balled us out of the dam 
lodge." 

**My friend" (still smiling) **any man of good sense 
would know by one look in your honest face that you 
are a man to be trusted, and such idle talk reflecting 
upon your honesty and character could not hurt you 
among those who really know your moral standing in 
the community, I am sure." 

Here the prospect gave the agent a sly kick under 
the chair, and the agent knew that the crisis was over 
and, asking the *' Butter-in" to excuse him a minute, he 
deliberately completed the application, receipted for the 
check, and then turned on the tranquil Abe who was 
again puffing his cigar and hugging to his bosom the 
*'soft soap" that had been so adroitly administered at 
the right time. 



Objections and Answers 39 



*'Now I am done with Mr. Manning and he can 
attend to you. I thank you for giving away and putting 
your own pressing business aside for me." 

"Oh! that's all right, mister, I ain't in no hurry. 
Only want to get stmi sulfer and snuff to kill the lice on 
the hens. Did yer sell Ed. a policy? '* 

'*Yes.'' 

**How much did he take? " 

"Five thousand dollars." 

"By Heck! is thet so? What would it cost me for 
a couple thousand?" 

My company could not issue you a policy." 
Whynot?" 

Because you could not pass the inspection." 
What inspection ? " 

None but men of good moral character, who attend 
strictly to their own business, can get into my company. ' ' 

"What's the matter with me I'd like ter no, young 
feller?" 

"Well, you are looked upon as a low down chicken 
thief; you have been rejected by two fraternal societies. 
You are always sticking your nose into other people's 
business; you have no more manners than a pig, and 
you are lousy. No decent company wants such a thing 
as you are on its list of members." 

"See here, stranger, who's been ptmipin' yer full 
of hot air? Who told you such stuff. I'll make him 
prove it, by Heck, or bust the dome of the universe a 
tryin'." 

"You told it yourself right here, and as for your 
being lousy, the proof is running over your coat collar 
right now. Never mind, don't get up. I'll go around 
you. Good day." 






A STORY WITH A LESSON 




OME ten years ago the writer was soliciting 
insurance at Hopkins, a near suburb of 
Minneapolis. We had just had supper 
and I had an appointment to talk a $5000 
policy that evening with the proprietor 
of a general store. While sitting on the 
hotel porch during the time to elapse before seeing the 
merchant, I looked down the main street and beheld 
approaching the funniest outfit ever seen at large. In 
an old wobbly buggy drawn by an animal that would 
require a written pedigree to determine its species sat 
an elderly and well-dressed gentleman whose long, flow- 
ing beard and really intellectual face seem-ed entirely 
out of place in the approaching combination. The 
animal was in appearance neither horse, mule, nor ass. 
Of a dull dun color, with long, rough, woolly hair, a rat 
tail and enormous ears that flapped in time with each 
mincing step, it came on, the driver cutting slow circles 
in the air with the remnants of a two-bit whip, and 
ceaselessly urging the animal on by clucks and voice. 
We all watched the outfit approach and many were the 
comments on the strange apparition. Instead of passing 
the hotel it turned toward us and slowly came up to 
the curb and stopped. 

The driver glanced over the group and in a very 

pleasant voice inquired if Mr. , mentioning my name, 

was at the hotel. I arose and said: *'Yes sir, that is 
my name.*' 

Without a word he slowly but with great dignity 
drew from his inside coat pocket an unsealed letter and 

40 



Objections and Answers 41 

handed it to me, at the same time pulling upon the lines 
and steadying the old nag which was slowly sinking to 
its knees. It was the worst knee-sprung brute I re- 
member having seen before or since. Glancing at the 
envelope I saw it was from the president of my company 
and addressed in his own handwriting. Opening it I 
read: 

''Dear Sir: 

''This will introduce to you Hon. , ex-State Sena- 
tor from Dakota, who desires to connect himself with 
our agency department. I unhesitatingly vouch for his 
honesty and believe his age and wide experience, with his 
fine address, will place him in the front rank as a producer. 

" He has had no experience in the business, but I have 
sent him to you, and ask as a personal favor that you 
take hold of him and give him the benefit of your experi- 
ence and assistance. 

" Yours sincerely, 



''President:' 

I have already said that I was very favorably im- 
pressed with the Senator's appearance. He was about 
60 years of age and would impress any one favorably. I 
gave him my hand cheerfully and expressed my pleasure 
at meeting him, and turning to the stable boy, who had 
never taken his eyes off the horse (for it proved to be a 
horse) said: "Take the gentleman's horse to the bam, 
Billy, and see that it is well cared for, '* and to the Sen- 
ator: "Come right in, Senator, and get your supper 
while it is warm . ' ' He did not make any move toward dis- 
mounting, but looking with affectionate solicitude at the 
animal said quietly but firmly: "I never allow any 
hand but mine to touch my horse. I prefer to see to him 



42 Objections and Answers 

myself," and after several attempts to get the brute in 
motion they slowly followed Billy to the barn. Amusing 
as the whole scene was, the quiet dignity of the Senator 
was so effectual that no one smiled or spoke as they dis- 
appeared around the corner. Thirty minutes passed, 
and as neither Billy nor the Senator appeared, I went 
into the dining-room and informed the landlady that a 
Senator had just arrived and would soon be in for supper. 

He came slowly in after a bit bringing a robe, the 
buggy cushion, a small hand grip and the whip, and after 
carefully depositing them in a safe place, washed up, 
combed his hair and luxurious beard with great care and 
entered the dining-room without having spoken to or 
noticed myself or any others. When he came out I in- 
troduced him to the others as Senator of Dakota, 

and an honored member of our agency force. Then I 
said : * ' Well, Senator, I have an appointment with a mer- 
chant to talk insurance this evening. Would you care 
to go along?" 

He promptly replied: ** Thank you. Yes, I shall 
be pleased to go, but first I must see that my horse is 
properly groomed and cared for. It will not take long, 
and / never allow any hand but mine to touch hinty " and he 
arose and went to the barn. With visions of that brute 
fresh in my mind I could scarcely restrain a laugh, but I 
did. In about half an hour the Senator came in, washed 
up and combed his beard carefully and announced that 
he was ready. We started toward the store and I began 
at once to give him his first lesson. 

"The President says this is your first step as a life 
agent." 

**Yes, " he replied, **it is all Greek to me, but I can 
learn, and what other men can do I can do." 

I liked that, but at the same time I had seen be- 
ginners break in unwittingly and spoil a deal, and 



Objections and Answers 43 

resolved that this should not be a repetition of a like 
experience, so I said: 

*'Well, Senator, I will introduce you to the prospect 
but do not at any time break in or speak a word. Just 
listen and ask your questions afterwards. This mer- 
chant is a tough one and the least interruption might 
queer the whole thing. ' * He was not in the least offended 
and promised to keep quiet. 

I introduced him to the merchant, and at once opened 
up. There were no customers in the store and I wanted 
to close the deal before we were interrupted. 

**I believe we decided on a $5000, Twenty Pay Life 
Policy,'* I said, taking out my *'ap.*' and pen. 

*'No. Make it $3000,'* he said promptly and I 
began to write. I was about half way through the 
blank when the Senator, who had kept his word and 
listened in silence, discovered some horse hairs or wool 
on his sleeve which he carefully brushed away, got up, 
and glancing inquiringly about the store said to the mer- 
chant: **By the way, have you any of Sheridan's Con- 
dition Powders on sale here ? ' ' The merchant, scenting a 
sale, promptly arose, but I said with a scowl at the Sen- 
ator, *' Wait, just a moment. Sign your name right here. 
The Senator is in no hurry and I am nearly done." But 
in the face of all that the Senator remarked that he pre- 
ferred to get the powders right then lest he might forget 
it, and the merchant walked away saying: **No, I do 
not carry Sheridan's Condition Powders but I have some 
that are much better," and despite the fact that I was 
mad enough to commit murder, and the blood was rush- 
ing through my ears making a noise like a mill race, I 
heard the Senator's reply in that calm, cool, but soothing 
voice as he said: ** Pardon me, but there are no condi- 
tion powders that in any degree approach those of 
Sheridan's. I have used them for years, and would 



44 Objections and Answers 

hardly dare to change to another brand for my horse ( ?) 
(God save the mark) is used to Sheridan^s. I take care 
of him myself and never allow another hand to touch'' — 
Smash ! I had bitten my tongue, kicked over a can of 
machine oil, and spilled the ink in one spasm of infuri- 
ated rage that amounted to an insane frenzy. Then 
followed a long argimient as to the merits and demerits of 
Sloan's and Sheridan's Condition Powders, while I sat 
there by the unfinished **ap/' and cursed that old horse 
from Hopkins to Halifax. Presently two lady customers 
came in and the merchant was busy with them for half an 
hour. The Senator came back where I was sitting and 
combing his long beard with his long fingers said softly : 
* * He cannot convince me that Sloan's — " ' ' Oh ! thund- 
eration!" I yelled. *'What do you suppose I care for 
your darned old horse ? If you had not butted in I'd had 
his application in a minute and made enough in commis- 
sions to have bought a dozen old scare crows like that." 
It never fazed him. Slowly pulling his beard he continued : 
* ' The only condition powders — " * * Shut up ! " I shouted, 
and flew out the back door and fell to kicking the devil 
out of a bunch of empty dry-goods boxes. I never was so 
mad in all my life. I would have given $25 for one crack 
at that horse ( ?) with an axe. When the ladies went away 
I approached the merchant with a smile like a scared 
corpse and a voice that trembled with passion and said 
as sweetly as I could under the pressure : * ' You seem to 
have a pretty good trade here. Now, let us finish this 
*ap.' before we are interrupted again." 

He slowly shook his head and said: *'No, not to- 
night. I promised to meet my wife at the Church and 
am late now." 

The Senator and I went out together but I could 

not speak for ten minutes. Then I blurted out : * * Well, 

Senator, you start in well. That infernal old plug of 



Objections and Answers 45 

yours cost me over $60 tonight. Now I am going over 
to that little yellow house to write a section foreman a 
$1000 policy. I'll see you at the hotel later." 

**0h! let me go along, I want to learn all I can," 
he said, and I stopped and looked him in the face. It 
was the nicest face I ever saw, and I could not refuse him 
to save my life, so I said: *'A11 right, come along, but 
don't interrupt — don't say a word." 

We went in. It was in the spring and we sat in the par- 
lor with the windows and doors open. I had written the 
** ap." and we had come to the question of settlement. He 
wanted to pay half cash and give his note due in thirty 
days for the balance which was satisfactory. I made out 
the note and receipt and he got up to get the cash, when 
IT HAPPENED, The Senator sat in the open door 
combing his whiskers as usual but he had not peeped. 
Now he turned to the section man and said : ''That's a 
mighty fine cow you have out there, mister. What do 
you have to pay for such a cow as that?" The man 
turned back as quick as a flash and said to me: ''That 
makes me think. I've got a $30 payment on that cow 
next month, and I can't possibly take this policy until 
she is paid for." 

I have no recollection of what followed during the 
next few minutes. I have a shady memory of remarking 
that I would see him later. I felt the fresh air on my 
burning face; the houses and trees and things seem to 
have been moving in a circle and the air was filled with 
maniacal laughter which probably came from my choking 
throat. I woke up in bed at the hotel with half a dozen 
wet towels on my head and came to my senses about 
daylight. I dragged myself down to the ofiice, wrote 
a note to the President which I sent unsealed by the 
Senator. I faintly remember watching the combi- 
nation drive slowly away, and then I went to bed again. 



46 Objections and Answers 

It was months afterwards when the president showed me 
my letter which the Senator gave him. It was short 
and sweet: 

"Dear Sir: 

**I return you herewith the Senator and his damned 
old horse. If you have any more such, please shoot the 
horse, drown the man, and bury both. He cost me over 
$70 last night by butting in, and I cannot stand for it. 
Give him a halo and a harp and steer him up against the 
Salvation Army. 

Yours Res*y 



<< Tr^--^^ T)^«>„ »> 



The president told me that the Senator came in 
and gave him the letter and mildly requested that he be 
given a territory to work in and he would show that un- 
godly puppy out at Hopkins that he could write insur- 
ance without his help. And I want to tell you right here 
that the Senator **made good.*' He wrote $85,000 of 
good business before December 31st that same year. I 
got the section man later, but the merchant, never. 



A SACRED IDIOT 




5l AM entirely in the hands of the Master. 
My work is His work. . I have been 
called to preach Christ and Him cruci- 
fied, and have accepted the call. I 
never give heed for the morrow, for God 
will provide. I put myself entirely in 
His hands. He who fed Elijah will feed me. He will 
clothe me and I shall not suffer. The mercies of God 
encompass us. They are limitless and inexhaustible. I 
take everything to God in prayer. I would not insult 
Him by carrying life insurance. To do so would imply a 
lack of faith in His promises. This life is but transitory 
at best. Our work here is to prepare for hereafter. I 
believe in absolute sanctification. A sanctified man can- 
not sin. God has blessed me with sanctification and I 
bless His holy name for it.'* 

** Has He blessed you with anything else ? " 
**Yea, verily, He hath blessed me with good health 
and a burning desire to exalt His kingdom on earth.'* 
**Has he blessed you with anything else? '* 
** Yea, verily. I have been saved by His blood and 
redeemed from among the multitude of sinners. I 
have been chosen as one of the elect." 

**I do not suppose that your good wife and these 
dozen little ones of yours count for blessings at all then.*' 
Yes, they are incidental blessings, so to speak.*' 
Incidental blessings' as applied to a house full 
of helpless and half-starved little ones, is good. Does 
not God require of you a father's love and protection 
for these little ones and their tired mother? " 



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48 Objections and Answers 



** Yea, verily, as a father and husband I am required 
to teach them the way to life everlasting/* 
Is that all that God requires of you?** 
I know not all of His designs and purposes but He 
knoweth and that sufficeth for me.** 

* ' Do you dp anything but preach and pray and shout 
and sing?** 

**That is the sum of my duties.** 

* ' Is there any money in it ? ' * 

"My wants are few and the Father will provide.*' 

**The wife and children want for nothing then.** 
They are in God*s hands.** 

Then why does your God let them go barefooted, 
bareheaded, barebacked, and hungry?'* 

** Sometimes God visits punishment on us for our own 
good.*' 

**Your good wife tells me that the last baby has 
never had a dress of any kind; only that piece of cloth 
wrapped about it.*' 

*'She should not complain. Jesus was born in a 
manger." 

** What do you pray for most earnestly?** 

'*For more perfect faith and sanctification.*' 

** For yourself?" 

** Yes, and for them that they too may be sanctified." 

**I suppose you are all ready to die and get into your 
robe?** 

** Yea, I am ready for the call of the Master.** 

**You are ready to go and leave these children and 



It 
It 



their mother without a cent or a loaf of bread. And 

expect to enjoy heaven? ** 
If it is God*s will, yes." 
Do you think that would be God*s will? " 
Verily I know not the will of the Father. But He 

doeth all things well. Brother, are you a Christian? " 



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Objections and Answers 49 

*I hope so, but not your kind.'* 

'There is but one kind of a Christian." 

*And you think you are IT, eh?" 

*Yes, so I believe." 

'Then I am not a Christian, thank God." 

' You are sacrilegious . ' ' 

'I am not. To my mind a Christian would not 
bring a young one into the world every year and let it 
starve, even if it was only an 'incidental blessing.' A 
Christian who was able to do an honest day's work 
would get out and shovel dirt and earn something for 
his family, and not sit around thimibing his Bible and 
mtimbling about sanctification when his family was on 
the verge of starvation. My kind of a Christian has re- 
gard enough for his God to see that these little ones are 
not living illustrations of the unwisdom of the Creator. 
My kind of a Christian would not cover his selfishness 
under a cloak of sanctification and live in such a hole as 
this home is. Your home and your habits of life are a 
disgrace to civilization. It is the talk of the neighbor- 
hood. They told me what to expect when I called on 
you, but it is worse than I expected. It is evident that 
in the distribution of talents God forgot brains in your 
case, but he gave you health and muscle and how are 
you using these talents? Some day you will die. Not 
because God wants you up there, but because you will 
not have enough energy to draw another breath, and 
then your neighbors will have to step in and feed the 
family that you have starved. That will be the first 
time they ever had a square meal, and to that extent 
your death will be a blessing. I am no preacher. I am 
only a plain spoken life insurance agent, but some one 
ought to tell you some straight truths, and I believe I 
am the instrument of God to give you the message. Here 
are twelve little helpless ones and a stricken, child-bear- 



50 Objections and Answers 

ing mother, dependent upon you for bread and clothes. 
There is nothing to eat in this home and the whole crowd 
together have not enough clothes to wad a shot gun. 
And you sit here and pray for more sanctification. You 
are a living burlesque on the wisdom of your Creator and 
a standing rebuke on the Christian religion." 

**Stop, Brother. I am one of God's anointed, and you 
must not talk that way to a servant of the Most High.*' 

**Back up ! You are no more anointed than a greased 
pig. If you were a servant of the Most High you would 
do right. Do not call me Brother. I could not be a 
second cousin of yours and remain in the same com- 
munity with you a single day. I respect your calling 
but detest your selfishness. You said you had a call to 
preach. Now listen! Do you not hear another call? 
The voice of the Master calling on you to do your duty to 
your family? That same voice tells you that he who 
cares not for those of his own household is worse than an 
infidel. That means YOU. Get a move on yourself 
and use the talents that God has given you in providing 
bread and butter and clothing and a decent home for 
these precious bodies that He has * incidentally' placed 
in your charge. May God pity you and help you and 
bless you.'* 



RUBBING IT IN 




WAS once writing insurance at Vemdale, 
Minnesota. Among my * ' combines ' ' was 
a young man who lived there and gave 
promise of becoming a ''getter.** He 
had some education and plenty of nerve. 
He was only a beginner, but was begin- 
ning right. There was a local representative of the 
Mutual Life there who *'had it in*' for my beginner, 
and never lost an opportunity to butt in on a deal or 
backbite and malign the young man and ridicule him at 
every possible chance that offered. One day my young 
man ** closed** a $2000 deal that the Mutual Life man 
had been working on. This made him mad and every- 
body in the village knew it. My lad kept his temper 
and "sawed wood.** Two or three days later he asked 
me to go out with him that evening to see a man. I 
went and he closed him for $1000. He was the other 
fellow's brother-in-law, and he had been after him for 
months. He threw fits by the dozen and ripped the 
town up the back, but he was on the verge of insanity 
when my man closed the hardware man for $2000, and 
got his check for the premium, when the other fellow 
had been trying for a month to trade him a policy for a 
kitchen range, and had offered to rebate the difference. 
He wrote for the manager and urged him to come at 
once as he was losing his business. A few days later the 
manager arrived, and the local took him to the three men 
and they tried to knock the business out, because the 
policies had not yet been delivered. The local boasted 
to my man that his manager was there and he better 

51 



52 Objections and Answers 

move on, etc. I felt kind of sorry for my beginner, and 
not wishing to get him into a mix-up offered to take him 
into the country that day with me. He refused to 
budge an inch and seemed anxious to mix up with them 
both. I had to go into the country and got back to the 
hotel for a late supper. My man was in the office look- 
ing sullen but undismayed. Presently there entered 
the room a man who weighed about 250 pounds. He 
had on a silk hat, a big diamond in his expansive shirt 
front, a bigger one on his little finger, and stacked up like 
a millionaire. 

His distinguished appearance and lordly bearing 
made him the observed of all observers. The office was 
pretty well filled and the mogul who recognized my man 
who had been pointed out to him during the day set out to 
squelch him. He moved majestically across the room 
and pulling a small white card out of a case presented it 
to the lad without uttering a word. The funniest thing 
that I ever saw before or since occurred. Was the lad 
squelched? Well, not what you would notice. The 
card read **The Mutual Life.'' Only those three words. 
My lad sprang to his feet and grasped the mogul by his 
hand and rung it hard, exclaiming in a loud voice: 
** Gentlemen, it is here. The whole damned shooting 
match. Not an agent nor an officer, but it. This is The 
Mutual Life. The whole squeeze. Look at it. It says 
so right on this pasteboard. The Mutual Life.** Again 
grasping the mogul's hand he turned him about and 
bowed till his head nearly touched the floor, and went 
on : * * I Ve often heard of you and met one or two of your 
representatives, but by Gosh! I never expected to see 
the whole company out here in this town. Gentlemen, 
look at it. Whenever you think of the Mutual Life, 
just remember that you saw it right here. The whole 
thing,** The yells and hoots and cat calls that went up 



Objections and Answers 53 

from that laughing crowd must have made ''It '* feel like 
thirty cents. He could no more face the ridicule than 
one could face an avalanche. He paid his bill and went 
to the depot and my lad followed him with his hat under 
his arm in meekly asstimed servitude, and he never put 
on his hat or took his eyes off **//'* till he disappeared 
in the train. Then he came back to the hotel and the 
crowd **set 'em up'* till midnight. 

It is needless to add that my belief that he would 
become a *' getter" was well grounded. He is in the 
business yet and that was fifteen years ago. 




THE TWO SYSTEMS 

HERE are two systems of life insurance and 
each has its place in the great scheme of 
protection. The following conversation 
between a Fraternal and an Old Line 
agent may prove educational if not hilari- 
ously interesting. In this case it appears 
that the Fraternal man had the **chip on his shoulder*' 
for he opened the subject as follows : 

**You Old Liners are down on Fraternal insurance, 
ar'n't you?" 

** Indeed, I am not. I hold that any institution 
that goes into a man's home and pays his widow a 
thousand dollars when he is dead and gone is a God- 
send, and is too good a thing for an agent to be down 
on just because the system upon which the institution 
operates differs from the system which he represents." 

''Then you admit that the Fraternals do some good 
in the world." 

**Most assuredly I admit it and bid them God speed 
in their good work." 

*'Then why do you Old Liners fight the Fraternals 
so?" 

**I, for one, do not fight them. There is no com- 
parison between them and our system and therefore 
should be no rivalry. Each has its place independently 
of the other. There are thousands of poor working men 
who cannot possibly buy the best policies because they 
cannot afford it. But they can buy a fraternal policy 
that costs but a small amount a month, which is good 
protection while it lasts, and has brought comfort to many 

54 



Objections and Answers 55 

a stricken home — ^homes that we could not reach. Some 
men cannot buy fine clothes for their wives and chil- 
dren, or ride in fine carriages or even start a small bank 
account, because it takes all they can possibly earn to 
provide the bare necessities of life, and it is the same 
in the matter of Life Insurance. These men must cut 
their garments according to the cloth, and while they 
cannot carry the best policy, it is a blessing that such 
men can find at least temporary protection in a fraternal 
society which comes within their reach.*' 

**If you think so much of fraternal insurance, why 
don't you sell it?*' 

** Because ours is a business proposition that affords 
all the protection of the fraternals, at the same time 
building up a sum of money for old age, and during 
the years when a man can earn he gets his policy paid 
up, and therefore cannot be frozen out by excessive 
assessments in his old age, and after all, leave his family 
destitute." 

**I suppose you think that all of the virtues and 
none of the vices are found in old line insurance ? " 

*' I know of no vices in any good life insurance." 

**What excuses have you to offer for the exorbitant 
cost of old line insurance? " 

''I have no excuses to offer for either the rates, plan, 
or results of old line insurance. Any business that 
requires excuses is not worthy of patronage." 

'*What is the chief value of life insurance from your 
standpoint , anyhow ? " 

**The chief value of life insurance is the protection 
it provides for the home and loved ones." 

**Well, now I have got you right where I wanted 
you. Does not a fraternal or assessment policy furnish 
as good protection as an old line policy, and at less than 
half the price? Answer that if you can." 



56 Objections and Answers 

*'Now, my friend, I did not invite this discussion 
and do not desire to enter into any heated argument, but 
you have brought this on yourself and must abide by the 
results. Remember that I am not attacking fraternal 
insurance, but evidently your knowledge of the rudi- 
ments of life insurance is exceedingly limited. All that 
assessment insurance can offer is only temporary pro- 
tection, and that at an advancing cost, so the older the 
assured the less he is able to earn and the harder it is for 
him to keep up the assessments, and finally he is forced 
to drop it, if the association has not died of its own 
weight, and at the time when the protection is most 
needed he has none and is then unable to get other. 
Moreover, there is not one single guarantee on any as- 
sessment policy as to cost or the amount the beneficiary 
will receive as a death benefit. There is nothing to 
perpetuate an assessment concern. By reason of the 
fact that they furnish only temporary protection they 
undertake to sell it for much less than actual cost, so 
that every policy they put out is absolutely certain to 
create a deficiency which has to be made good later on. 
That is why there are no old assessment companies. 
They do good while young and die before they are old. 
The trouble with you is that you have been misled by 
your organizers into thinking that you have a policy 
that is guaranteed as to cost, and yet, there has never 
been such a policy issued by a single fraternal associa- 
tion in the world. Look around you and what do you 
see ? Thousands of old men who are blaming assessment 
insurance because they paid for years, and either the 
company died of its own weight, or froze them out by 
assessments so high that they had to lie down. This is 
the history of assessment insurance the world over. On 
the other hand, you never find these disgusted and dis- 
gruntled old men in the ranks of old line policyholders. 



Objections and Answers 57 

Either their policies are paid up for life and their old age 
made certainly comfortable or they are living in com- 
fort on the cash paid to them when their policies matured. 

*'Your system is speculation based largely on guess- 
work alone, while ours is an absolute scientific fact made 
possible by charging enough to guarantee every promise 
and perpetuate the company for all time. On your plan 
the assured must die to beat it, and die young. On our 
system, whether living or dying, the policyholder who 
stays is certain to win. On your plan, he pays his 
money without any return save his protection and pays 
until either he or the association dies. On our plan, 
every dollar he pays returns to him, if he lives to mature 
the contract, and he has sufficient money in hand to 
make him comfortable in his declining years. On 
your plan, if he is behind a day on his assessment he is 
suspended, and is therefore unprotected a good share 
of the time. On our plan, he pays once a year, has 
thirty days* grace on every payment, and when his 
third premiimi is paid his policy carries itself for several 
years, and he does not lapse. On your plan, he never 
knows what he has to pay until he receives his notice. 
On our plan, he knows just what he is to pay and has a 
whole year in which to prepare to meet it. On your 
plan, when he pays an assessment he says good-bye to 
the money. On our plan he says : ' Well, I have that 
much money saved up anyhow.' 

''These are a few only of the advantages of old line in- 
surance as compared with assessment protection. But, 
nevertheless, as I said on the start, your plan is a God- 
send for such as cannot buy a guaranteed policy with us. 

*'It is your duty and mine as life agents to do all 
in our power to strengthen every man in any and all 
protection which he is carrying, and we cannot do this by 
attacking any system, association, or company.*' 



KEEZEL 















Y what process of Darwinian descent he had 
finally reached the lowest level attained 
by the life underwriter — that of a profes- 
sional twister — it is difficult to determine. 
He had (mis) represented nearly all of the 
old line companies at different times and 
had left behind him in almost every case a ledger balance 
that did not appear in the annual reports as ''secured," 
and when the cyclone struck the big companies and the 
papers were teeming with ''editorials'' (?) written by 
editors ( ?) who were unable to distinguish between Re- 
serve and Surplus, but were catering to a public demand 
for clap-trap, and when the whole country was throbbing 
over sensational reports and howling for ' ' investigation, ' ' 
Keezel saw his opportunity. Here, at last was an open- 
ing for the * ' Twister. ' ' He seized upon it with the avidity 
of a pup after a flea and as a necessary preparation for 
his new occupation he loaded up with a grip full of news- 
paper clippings, selecting only such as reeked with villifi- 
cation and prophetic warnings of impending disaster. 
Committing the most virulent of these to memory, and 
thus supplied with sufficient virus to inoculate his pro- 
posed victims with a fever of distrust, he sallied forth 
on his insidious career. 

He purposed the lapsation of several millions of 
the *'Big Four'' policies and the placing in lieu thereof 
policies of some Western company whose record was 
unknown and therefore unassailed. He found some 
difficulty in selecting a company with which to connect, 

58 



Objections and Answers 59 

but finally found a small, new and unknown Western 
corporation that had come into existence as a sort of a 
hybrid, to **fill a long-felt want,'* and advertising a 
middle ground between the *' extravagant cost'* of old 
line and the ** uncertainty'* of assessment insurance, and 
had thrown its banner to the breeze under the ambiguous 
and high sounding name of **The Natural Premium Life 
Association of America." Keezel did not know just 
what that meant, but as the rates were low and the 
assessment clause was adroitly covered up under a lot 
of verbiage headed ** Safety Provision," he selected it as 
the most promising policy with which to knock out the 
business of the ''Eastern Shylocks." 

His methods were indicative of the man. First lo- 
cating an old line policyholder, he would rush in like 
a streak of wind and exclaim: **Ah, ha, what do you 
think of your Mutual Life policy now?" Pulling out a 
clipping he would thrust it under the man's nose and 
shout: ** Light has dawned at last. Behold the down- 
fall of those mighty minions. The Mutual Life, the 
New York Life, the Equitable, and the iEtna are doomed 
to utter annihilation. They have been robbing us for 
years. More than seventeen billions of dollars have 
been squandered in big salaries, padded pay rolls, high 
living by high rollers and at last, the days of old line in- 
surance are munbered. Throw up your policy and get 
what you can out of it quick. More than a million policy- 
holders in the Mutual alone have surrendered their 
policies and the avalanche has only just begun. Five 
million six hundred and fifty-seven thousand policy- 
holders in the rotten Big Four have already transferred 
their policies to The Natural Premium Life Association of 
America, of which I have been appointed exclusive re- 
presentative for this State. We have come into the 
breach in order to save as much salvage as possible 



6o Objections and Answers 

out of the horrible wreck. Let me look at your 
policy/ \ 

The victim hands out the policy in a sort of a half 
apologetic manner, and Keezel proceeds to look it 
over carefully, meanwhile muttering to himself in an 
audible undertone, **The inhviman fiends, robbers, 
wreckers, I wonder what infernal bloodsucker sold this 
thing, anyhow?'' Then he turns to the waiting but 
weakening policyholder and says: *'I see by this that 
they should have had some cash for you at this time, 
but the good Lord knows how much. They are a cor- 
poration, and every policyholder is the same as a stock 
holder in a bank, and liable for twice the amount of his 
stock, so there is no telling whether you will be able to 
get a penny or whether you will not be called upon to 
pay twice the amount of your policy, if this investigation 
throws the company into liquidation. It is a shame, 
but we are all in the same boat. We may not be able 
to get much of your money back, but we are able to save 
you from any further loss or liability. We will issue 
you one of our policies for a like amount as this, fully 
paid for one year, and take this policy in exchange, and 
if we are able to save you anything more will do so, when 
the business of the Mutual is wound up." 

It worked for a time, but it soon began to dawn on 
the people that the Big Four and all other old line 
companies were as solid as a government bond, and that 
notwithstanding the fearful onslaught made on them 
from all sides none were failing or liquidating and that 
their policies were better than ever. 

The last end of Keezel was fitting. A mob chased 
him into the river and he was run down by a mud scow 
and perished, and over in one corner of a small burying 
ground is a neglected grave over which stands a slab 
with the following verse cut in with a jackknif e : 



Objections and Answers 6i 

** There was a man who died of late, 
Sweet angels hearing of his fate, 
Came soaring down on wings of love 
To waft him to the realms above. 
Still hovering 'round the lower skies 
And each contending for the prize. 
In crept the devil like a weasel, 
And down below he kicked Old Keezel." 



WRITING A JOINT BUSINESS POLICY 




HERE has come into demand the joint 
policy that protects business partners, and 
it is a policy that the ** front door man'* 
ought to push hard. 

You first, by inquiry, learn what men 
are in partnership ; whether it is liable to 
be a long partnership; as near as you can you ascertain 
the value of their business and the personal relations of 
the partners. Having selected your ** timber'* you walk 
boldly into their business place and introduce yourself to 
whichever one you first meet. Without disclosing yotir 
business, ask him where his partner is and if possible get 
them together. If they are busy at the moment, tell 
them you have a private business matter to talk over and 
make an appointment to meet them both in the evening 
after business hours. If they ask you what your busi- 
ness is, tell them you will go into details later, and be 
just a little mysterious about it. Incidentally ask them 
if they are equal partners, or if they contemplate any 
changes in their business relations. Then get out and 
don't show up again till the minute agreed upon. 

When you meet them, come right along as though 
you had a definite purpose and no time to waste. Here 
it is : 

** Gentlemen, what is your business worth? I mean 
what would either of you give or take for his half interest ? 
Don't think me impertinent, but let us be perfectly 
frank." Then turning to the one whom in yotir mind 
you have settled upon as the stronger of the two, go 
right ahead before they have had time to resent your 

62 



Objections and Answers 63 

nerve or reply to yoiir questions. **Let us suppose 
that your buvsiness is worth $20,000; that either of you 
would buy the other for $10,000. Now suppose your 
partner here should be killed or died unexpectedly. You 
would have to at once take an inventory of stock, and 
lay your plans to buy off his family. They would have 
to have some ready money, and it must come from the 
business. Possibly you might have to make a 'sacrifice 
sale' to meet this sudden demand. Anyhow, you are 
dead sure of one thing and that is that your partner's 
interests must be taken care of. You must either bor- 
row the cash to buy his interest or arrange to pay it in a 
series of payments, which would load you down with a 
heavy weight and hang like a millstone about your neck 
for years. His helpfulness is gone and his place must be 
filled with hired help. You are in honor bound to see 
that his family gets $10,000. Your whole plans are up- 
set. You are up against it hard. It is going to be a big 
loss anyway you figure it and you can't help it. Now, 
is that not the truth?'* 

They admit it every time, for it is absolutely a self- 
evident truth. 

**Well, gentlemen,** you go on, **I am here to put 
you in shape to avoid all that and make some money by 
it too. Twenty thousand dollars is approximately your 
joint assets. Now, I represent a company who can ab- 
solutely carry you through such a crisis and leave the 
survivor sole owner of the business after paying the dead 

partner's heir $10,000 in cash. I am with the Life 

Insurance Company, and our joint policy does it. We 
will sell you a policy for $10,000 covering both lives, and 
if one dies dtiring the next twenty years we will pay the 
survivor $10,000 and if both live we will pay you $5250 
apiece in cash. 

**You pay the premitun out of the business, charge 



64 Objections and Answers 

it up to the business, and living or dying, you never 
jeopardize a single dollar of your investment for the 
policy absolutely guarantees to return to you all you have 
paid in at the end of the twenty years, with a small rate of 
interest added.** 

Nine times out of ten you have gotten those men 
interested and you will find these policies splendid sellers. 
They are written to cover two or more partners. 



A FINISHING ARGUMENT 




HE agent had been talking three solid hours 
on a stretch with a splendid farmer. 
Time and again he had met and overcome 
the objections of his prospect. The farmer 
had admitted that he was in favor of life 
insurance, and the agent knew that he 
was able to carry at least $3000. Gradually a condition 
of absolute confidence had been reached. The farmer 
had frankly told his financial condition in detail. He 
owned a quarter section on which there was an *'on or 
before '' mortgage at six per cent. He had a splendid new 
barn on which he owed about $1100, a fine brick house 
and the usual out buildings. Everything inside and out- 
side the house was spick and span, which betokened pros- 
perity and good management. His property was well 
worth twelve thousand and his total indebtedness a trifle 
under three thousand dollars. He was practically on easy 
street but freely admitted the need of protection. 

The wife was a pleasant and attractive little woman, 
but there was a sad look in her blue eyes as she glanced 
toward the enlarged photograph of a beautiful four- 
year-old lad who had died a few weeks before. Two 
other children remained to them and it was evident by 
the freedom with which they climbed about papa and 
mamma that there was no lack of a father's tenderness 
and a mother's love in that afflicted home. The wife sat 
in silence listening to the talk and had not uttered a 
word either for or against the question under discussion. 
There was a hitch somewhere, but the agent for the life 
of him was unable to locate it. The man was certainly 

65 



66 Objections and Answers 

favorable to insurance and the wife had not objected. 
And yet he knew with unerring instinct that the time 
had not come to *'pull the ap.*' He shifted his position 
slightly and in so doing, could see the back of the wo- 
man's head in a near-by mirror. Then he took up the 
subject again. ** Well, my friends, can you see anything 
but good in the proposition? Is not right now the 
proper time to close the matter? '* The husband glanced 
at his wife and in the mirror the agent saw an almost im- 
perceptible shake of her head. Bless the good Lord, he 
was ** on " in a second. He had located the hitch at last. 
This sweet, quiet little woman with the sad eyes was the 
stumbling block. He could have shouted with delight 
for he had discovered the *'key log'* in the *' jam'' that 
had been holding the ** drive." Instantly realizing the 
situation, and not waiting for the husband to utter the 
words: '* We will think it over, " he laimched out on his 
final argument. 

**My friends, you have been very kind and patient 
with me while I have told you as plainly as I could some 
of the benefits to be found in life insurance, but there is 
one condition that we have not fully covered, which is 
liable to arise at any time, which please hear me explain. 
You own property here which is worth twelve thousand 
dollars, against which you have an indebtedness of 
something like twenty-eight hundred dollars. Now, in 
order to place things before you both just as they are I 
am going to be cruel. Please do not think me heartless 
or thoughtless, but listen. Theoretically I am about to 
commit murder." Then turning to the husband he said 
with a whimsical smile. **You are dead. Somehow, 
either through accident or sickness, your life has suddenly 
and unexpectedly gone out. You can no longer see 
or hear what is going on around you. For you, all work 
and worry, all trials and triimiphs are over. The pic- 



Objections and Answers 67 

ture I am about to paint is as true as the gospel of 
God. After the first awful shock of your death is over, 
your widow, for the children's sake, tries to pull herself 
together. Stunned by the fearful blow, she has lived 
in frozen silence through the past few days. Dry eyed 
she stood like a piece of marble statuary while they 
builded the mound over your senseless clay. With 
heroic fortitude she returns to the joyless home and 
stands face to face with the world alone. Your shelter- 
ing arms are no more around her; your tender love no 
longer comforts her. 

*'She scarcely understands what that old lawyer 
is saying. She has never had any experience with the 
law. You had attended to that. But finally she be- 
gins to realize something of what confronts her. The 
lawyer tells her that when a man dies there must be ap- 
pointed an administrator; that the estate must be pro- 
.bated and the creditors paid off, and a lot more that is 
all Greek to her, and she finally places the case in the 
hands of the lawyer and the trouble begins. 

**An administrator is appointed and the process 
of probating the estate is on. First, the administrator 
must advertise in certain papers for several weeks calling 
upon all persons having claims against the dead man's 
estate to present their claims to the court. When the 
time is up, the Judge of Probate takes up each bill sepa- 
rately and decides just what the debts are. Added to the 
legitimate debts, there is the cost of probate, the lawyer, 
the advertising; and all is added to the debts. Then, un- 
less the widow has money to meet these claims, the 
sheriff advertises a public auction, and one day he comes 
and the crowds gather. First, the personal property goes 
under the hammer. The cows, horses, sheep, hogs, 
wagons, farm machinery, buggies, harness, in short every 
available thing on the farm that can be turned into cash. 



68 Objections and Answers 

The husband is in his grave and cannot see or feel the 
wrenching grief of his widow as she sees everything going 
at about half price on a forced sale. You think you have 
lots of friends, and doubtless you have, but you know as 
well as I can tell you that those friends and neighbors 
have not gathered at that sale to offer sympathy to your 
widow and children but every mother's son of them is 
there to get an $80 cow for $40, or a $250 horse for $125, 
and they are only human. Your wife's misfortune is 
their opportimity. 

**Well, the personal property is sold, and then up 
goes the farm. When enough money is raised to pay all 
the claims, not only the original debt but the costs of 
the court, the lawyers, the advertising, the auctioneer 
and the clerk, all other incidental expenses, and the 
crowd has gone, your widow learns that it has taken at 
least $6000 of gilt edged property to pay $3000 of debts 
and expenses. The estate has shrunk fully one half 
and what is left is less than you started on years ago. 
She faces the world alone to begin over again and is de- 
pendent upon hired help and dishonest or bad advisers. 
Still you sleep on, and do not hear when your wife and 
little ones come to lay the flowers on your grave; you do 
not see or feel the tears that fall with the flowers; you do 
not hear your wife telling the children about their lost 
papa. Poor woman, she has but the memory of your 
loving care as a legacy, but through her tears she leads 
the babies back to the devastated home, and taking 
them on her knees, shows them your photograph and 
says: *He did his best. He did his best/ 

*'But, my dear man, had you done your best? 

**Look at this other picture for one moment. Go 
back to the hour when the bills are all in and the Judge 
of Probate announces that the debts and costs so far 
amount to $2600. Weeks before that time a gentle- 



Objections and Answers 69 

man had walked into your stricken home, with his face 
evincing real heartfelt S3niipathy, but with a brave light 
in his eyes, and never referring to the loss of the husband, 
but cheerfully and yet tenderly he had procured her 
signature on the back of the life policy which you had 
carried, handed her the company's check for $3000, and 
quietly left the house, and is away on his God-given call- 
ing again. What is the result? No forced sale; no sell- 
ing property at half price. But your wife steps down 
to the bank, pays the bills, and holds the farm and the 
home, and the results of your long years of toil intact, 
and is assured a comfortable competence for herself and 
little ones for life.*' 

*'Then, indeed, she can say truthfully: *He did his 
best. He did his best.' '' 

There were tear stains on the *' ap.'' 



THE MAN WHO '* BUTTS IN" 




g'HERE are certain people in this great world 
of ours who appear to believe that God 
made the universe and everything therein 
for their own personal and especial benefit. 
Such a man is short on sense and long on 
conceit. He is invariably illiterate and 
does not know it. He is always on hand like a sore 
thumb. By some process of mental telepathy he *'gets 
onto*' everything that is going, from wireless telegraphy 
to the style of Mrs. Wilkins's hat. 

He can tell you precisely every incident of the episode 
in the Garden of Eden, and the why and wherefore 
of every happening from the creation of man to the 
discovery of the North Pole. He has the most decided 
opinion on every subject known to the htiman family. 
He is always *'on deck" with advice which is proffered 
without invitation and without price.. His chief stock in 
trade is his opinions. His seat of learning is covered 
by the patch on the seat of his pants. He is afflicted 
with a diarrhoea of words and a constipation of ideas. 
He will stand around, hang around, and sneak around 
with his gimlet eyes ever seeking a chance to butt in 
and his fish-hook nose ever finding a place to stick into 
other people's business. He is a failure but does not 
know it. He is as busy as a boy killing a snake. He 
makes up in activity what he lacks in ability. He makes 
more noise in his town than a runaway htimdinger. He 
is the scorn of his neighborhood and the bane of the life 
underwriter. He knows why a man should not protect 
his wife and family with a life policy, advises against it 

70 



Objections and Answers 71 

and could not scare tip a dollar for a suffering widow 
whom he has helped to rob, to save his little soul from 
perdition. He is too sappy to burn and has not enough 
head to hold a halo and the good Lord only knows where 
he will spend eternity. 

He usually has a large family who is as bare of clothing 
as their father is of common sense, and his wife is one 
of the most hopeless of God^s downtrodden creatures of 
the underworld. 

He lives in penury, dies in poverty, and leaves his 
dependents to the world's charity, and his wife a legacy 
of a wash tub. His only decent suit of clothes is the 
shroud furnished by his neighbors, and his only fit 
resting place is six feet of earth cut out of the paupers* 
field. A rose planted on his grave would develop into 
a thistle. 



TRITE TRUTHS 




HERE are a few trite sayings which can be 
used with telling effect by the honest 
solicitor. Do not be afraid to use them 
freely. If you are miseducated or mis- 
guided enough to try to sell life insurance 
as an investment only, get out of the busi- 
ness and go to selling gold bricks. The following short, 
trite sentences have sold more insurance than all the 
false statements as to *'big investments'' ever did. 

Never buy life insurance as an investment. It is a 
saving with protection. 

No life insurance company is going to do anything 
for you because it loves you. 

The only way to make big money in life insurance 
is to buy a big policy and die quick. 

It is not a '*get rich quick'* scheme, nor will you ever 
get rich out of it. 

Life Insurance Companies cannot do any more with 
their money than you can with yours, but they can 
and do protect you against loss by death, and save your 
money where it is safer than any bank on earth. 

Don't buy life insurance on what you are going to 
make if you live. Buy it for protection and save your 
'*old age fund" in that way. 

. 72 



Objections and Answers 73 

Give the agent credit for being honest — ^but let him 
prove his statements by a sample policy which you 
look over for yourself. 

A Life Insurance Policy never lies. 

The *' Other Fellow's*' life insurance don't help your 
family. 

If it's a good thing, take it now. If not, do not take 
it at all. 

There are no life insurance adjusters, because there 
is no salvage. When a man dies he's all dead, and the 
policy is worth its face value in spot cash. 

Tell me exactly how long you are going to live, and 
I'll tell you exactly what policy to take. 

If you died tonight how would you leave your loved 
ones? 

You are only sure of today. Yesterday is gone and 
tomorrow may never come to you. 



If you ''wait'' the children may ''want. 



M 



To turn down the life agent and then turn up your 
toes is dead wrong. 

To patronize the life underwriter before your wife 
patronizes the undertaker is dead right. 

When you let go of your wife's hand for the last time, 
leave two thousand dollars in it for the first time. 



74 Objections and Answers 

All any man is worth is what he leaves when he dies. 

A penniless widow means a dead failure. 

Motherlove has forced many a poor widow to sacrifice 
her body and soul for her children. Father love should 
prevent such a sacrifice. 

Every man handles a fortune during his life. Let 
enough stick to your fingers to pay for a life policy if 
the balance must slip through them. 

Life insurance money is bread money — not blood 
money. 

'* I am going to *' never did it. 

You cannot end right unless you start right. 

She who weeps over a pauper's grave, weeps twice. 

Will your widow dress as well as your wife does? 

Oh yes, you are as tough as moose. You are not going 
to die for years yet. How many of your ** tough" 
neighbors have you helped lay away? Are you an 
exception to the rule? 



HE MISCUED 



b^ -mwwC'gsE^ 




LIFE agent was one time talking to an 
exceedingly exemplary gentleman who 
really felt that he ought to have a policy, 
but his wife, who, by the way, was a 
splendid Christian woman whose whole 
life was given up to devotion to God and 
her family, was dreadfully opposed to life insurance be- 
cause she conscientiously believed it wrong. She was not 
a woman of hasty judgment or one who was inclined to 
be contrary. But whenever her husband broached the 
subject to her, she would say : ** Please don't talk about it. 
I cannot help feeling the way I do and I don't seem to 
be able to agree with you at all on the subject. I am 
sorry.'' There would be a suspicious tremble in her 
voice and tears in her eyes, and he had given up the 
attempt to change her mind. He told the agent all 
this, and the quiet manner in which he said it and the 
seriousness with which he talked showed that he, too, 
was sorry. He even went so far as to express his deep 
affection for his wife, and said that he would gladly 
carry a policy if he could do so with her consent. The 
agent asked him what specific objection she made to it, 
and he declared that was what he did not understand, 
but he believed it was simply because of her love for 
him, and the question of life insurance suggested the 
thought of his possible death, and seemed to completely 
upset her. He had no objection to the agent's talking 
with her provided he would not get her all unstrung, but 
as for himself, he had decided to not worry her any more 
over it. Here was one of the hardest conditions that 



75 



76 Objections and Answers 

could confront a life agent. If you know of a harder 
case than a really loving, Christian woman whose con- 
science opposed it, let us have it. I do not. But 
nevertheless, the agent decided to have a talk with her 
and went into the house. 

There was no beating about the bush. He began thus : 

*' Mrs. , do you mind telling me frankly and freely 

exactly why you do not want your husband to carry life 
insurance ? I promise you in advance that I will respect 
your opinion and will not undertake to change it unless 
you ask me to continue. I have been in this business 
many years and have yet to learn the first really worthy 
reason against it.** 

She sat down and looked steadily and squarely in his 
eyes and replied : 

**I believe you can understand my feelings. It is 
the only question on which my husband and I ever dis- 
agreed. I want to do as he wishes at all times. I do not 
want to appear contrary or obstinate. I have no spe- 
cific argimient to offer, but if you could feel and under- 
stand the chill that goes over me when I think of John's 
dying and leaving life insurance money in his place, you 
would know my reasons. It is not because I am set in 
my way but'* — and she actually shuddered — **I have 
prayed over it and cried over it and I cannot seem to 
feel that it would be right.** 

'*Your husband made me promise that I would not 
bore you with the subject. He said you could not 
talk about it calmly and believed it was because of your 
deep love for him. But you see, he loves you too, and 
he said a queer thing to me over there in his office. ** 

*'What did he say that you thought was queer? 
John is not given to saying queer things on any subject. '' 

*'Well, perhaps I used the wrong word and should 
have said a 'singular* thing instead of a 'queer* thing. 



Objections and Answers 77 

Anyhow no man ever talked just that way to me 
before/' 
/^Whatdidhesay?" 

'*He started out by saying that God has given him 
the best woman on earth for a wife; that he had loved 
you ever since he could remember, that you were the 
truest and tenderest and dearest woman on earth, but 
that he was worried. He went on to say that you and 
he began poor, and were still far from rich ; that the one 
aim and object of his life was to care for you and the 
children as unselfishly as you were doing for him and the 
children. But he knew if the good Lord took him 
away he could not leave you enough to make you com- 
fortable and keep the children together until they were 
large enough to care for themselves and for you. And 
the worst part of it was that in case he was taken away 
and you saw the little ones in need, you would never 
blame him, but you would then blame yourself for it and 
that would just about kill you. You see, he has you 
and your peace of mind first in his thoughts always. '' 

**I know John loves me and the children more than 
he does his life, God bless him. " 

*'Well, he has but one worry on his mind and for 
him it is a big one. It is the fear that he may be called 
away before he has saved up enough to leave you and 
the children in comfortable circimistances. I am not 
blaming you one bit, but I wish you could come to feel 
that it was best, and thus lift much of his burden and all 
of his worry.*' 

**I wonder if that is what ails him lately? I know 
he is working too hard, but he won't ease up. " 

**Well, if he knew that there was plenty for you 
and the children, he would ease up mighty quick. " 

She looked the agent steadily in the eye for some 
time, but her thoughts were elsewhere. Then she got up 



78 Objections and Answers 

and went to the door and called to her husband who 
came at once. She met him in the yard and they walked 
with arms about each other to a rustic seat and sat down 
and talked together for a full hour. The agent did not 
leave his seat. He was too wise to interrupt. Finally 
she came in and said sadly: **If it will ease John's mind 
I will not object any more, but we will talk it over a few 
days.'* The agent was too wise to look victorious but 
not wise enough to press the matter with John any 
further that day, and drove away. 

You will readily see that he was of no mean calibre by 
the manner in which he won the wife's consent. All 
the same he miscued. 

It was nearly two weeks before he found it con- 
venient to call upon those people again, and when he 
did, he took his wife with him for a drive. As they 
neared their destination they passed the village cemetery 
and both noticed a new-made grave, covered with flowers. 
They drove to the store and there learned the sad news 
that John had gone. Another visitor had crept stealth- 
ily into that home while this agent was away. A visitor 
who would not be put off. No time to **talk it over" 
then. For sleeping up yonder in that new-made grave, 
was — ^who do you think? Ah, you guess it v/as John 
and that the other visitor was the angel of death. You've 
got another guess coming. The other visitor was a 
rival agent who broke into that home the very day our 
man left, and wrote John for $3000 as easy as rolling off 
a log, and true, John was gone — ^fishing and camping with 
his family to get a rest from work and worry. 

Evidently our man would not know the ** psycho- 
logical moment" if it ran against him in daylight. 

The time to cut a melon is when it is ripe. 



THE "MUTUALS" AND "STOCK*' COMPANIES 




T is not the purpose of this publication to 
attempt a criticism or explanation of 
either the Mutuals or the Stock Com- 
panies. Each has excellent features and 
each performs the great work of protec- 
tion with equal certainty. 
Whatever may be the opinion of the writer as to 
the two plans, it has no place in these pages, save in so 
far as it applies to the man on the field. 

I have written both participating and non-participat- 
ing insurance with equal profit to the agent and equal 
satisfaction to the assured. Eliminating the investment 
feature from the scheme of life insurance and emphasiz- 
ing the savings and protection as the dominant features 
should be and doubtless is the true purpose of the man- 
agers of both plans. Whatever disappointments the 
holder of an old line policy may meet at the maturity of 
his contract is chargeable to the agent rather than to 
the company. In the matter of either annual or deferred 
dividends, the mutuals have made such an excellent 
showing as to evidence great executive ability and splen- 
did honesty, but nevertheless, it is true that the life 
underwriter who sells his goods on the investment 
feature, and places investment abov^ protection, is 
seldom found carrying the rate book of a non-participat- 
ing company. The reason for this is not found in the 
management or plan of either system, but lies in the head 
of the agent alone. A participating policy is as valuable 
and will prove as satisfactory to the policyholder as 
any insurance on the market, if it is sold right, but it 

79 



8o Objections and Answers 

must be admitted that the scheme of estimated dividends 
affords large opportunities for misrepresentation which 
disappear under a guaranteed dividend table plainly 
printed on the policy and is entirely eliminated by a 
non-participating contract. 

The evils arising from the sale of any old line insurance 
are such as are directly traceable to the seller. To place 
the seller in a position where misrepresentation is impossi- 
ble should be the aim as it doubtless is the desire of 
the managers of every old line company. However 
emphatic the commands of the managers to their agents 
may be as touching upon the over estimation of dividends, 
and notwithstanding the most explicit terms of the rate 
books and the literature, no mutual old line company 
has yet been able to eradicate from its field force the 
investment liar who sells his policies as great investments 
based on his own dishonest estimates which he brazenly 
designates as ** guaranteed results. '' This is imfortunate 
but in no wise reflects on the value of a participating 
policy. And yet, how unnecessary such misrepresen- 
tation is to the selling of a policy. Let the agent talk 
protection first, guaranteed reserve values second, and 
finally say to the prospect: **You will share in the sur- 
plus of the company and draw some dividends in addition 
to your guaranteed reserves, but my company compels 
me to tell you that these dividends are not guaran- 
teed as to amount. ** It is fair for him to add that they 
are just so much clear gain, whatever they may be. 
Indeed, I have known men to sell mutual insurance 
without mentioning the subject of dividends and when 
questioned, reply that the policy was good enough in itself 
and when it came, and the policyholder read about the 
dividends he would be pleased rather than disappointed. 
Would that we had more such men on the field. 

That the stock companies who write only non-partici- 



Objections and Answers 8i 



pating policies have the edge on the ''investment" ; 

seller is apparent, and yet they have no remedy against I 

the rascal who will sell twenty pay life for endowment, | 

or convertible term for limited pay. ] 

It is an encouraging fact that the tendency to over- 
estimate the results of a policy to the living holder 

is rapidly decreasing, and the best underwriters as well J 

as the best companies are emphasizing the protection i 

feature and making it the dominant argument in the ] 

creation of the demand for life insurance. A compari- ' 

son of the literature sent out by the old line companies j 

twenty-five or even fifteen years ago, with the literature j 

to be found on the field today, is conclusive proof of the j 

uplift of the system as a whole, and is resulting in ^ 

cleaner and better class of workers everywhere. { 

' The great demand of the insuring public is for pro- \ 

tection and it is upon this alone that the coming army of ^ 

life underwriters will achieve even greater success than ; 

has their predecessors. ^ 



CAN YOU BEAT THIS ? 




N application for $2000 insurance on the 
life of a country Editor came in from 
a new man who had gone out on an 
*' advance'' of $10 to get him started. 
This was the first word the home office 
had heard from him directly or indirectly 
since he started out, and, although the "ap/' was ac- 
companied by neither the ** nets'' or ''the note" and 
there was not a line of explanation, the management de- 
cided to * ' let it go through . ' ' But it was ' ' turned down ' ' 
in the Medical Department and the agent was written a 
nice letter of encouragement and regrets and told to re- 
fund the premiimi collected from the Editor. Several 
weeks passed and one day the following letter came into 
the home office addressed to the company : 

*' Gents: Some time ago I pade your agent ^64 for a 
two thouson' policy. I can't git the policy nor my 
money back. If you don't git a move on you and 
either pay it back or send the policy I'll Roast Hell 
outer your consern in my next issue. My paper has a 
circulashun of 379. 

"Yours, 

*'The Editor." 



That was to the point anyhow. Not a line had 
been received from the agent and a ''special" was sent 
down to settle up the mess. He found the agent sitting 
on the hotel porch with his feet on the railing, smoking 
a cigar. They shook hands and the special lost no time 
in *' opening up." 

82 



<< 



Objections and Answers 83 



'* How's things going, Old Man ? '' 

''Bum/' 

'*How many *aps' have you taken down here?" 

**Only one and he was rejected. ** 

''That was the Editor, wasn't it? " 

*'Yes, and he's raising the devil about it." 

* * What is he mad about ? " 
He wants his money back. " 

Of course he does. Haven't you refunded his 
premiimi?" 

''No." 

"Well, why not?" 

"I can't." 

"Have you spent the money?" 

"No, there wasn't any money." 

"How's that ? Tell me all about it. He has written a 
burner to the office and they sent me down to see him. " 

"Well, it's a long story." 

"Cut loose and let's have it. " 

" Well, I wrote him for $2000, and he had no money. 
I took an order on himself for job work and advertising, 
to be paid to the bearer on demand. I traded the order 
for a horse. Then I traded the horse for a delivery 
wagon. I traded the delivery wagon to the meat market 
for an order for meat for fifty dollars. I traded that 
order to the landlord here and agreed to board it out, 
and how can I refund to the Editor? That's what 
I'd like to know." 

The "special" looked at the agent in open-eyed 
admiration. He never even reprimanded him; such 
genius was wonderful. He "fixed it up" with the Ed- 
itor, and went away, leaving the agent on the porch 
placidly smoking his pipe, and the home office never 
heard of him or its ten dollar "advance" from that day 
to this. 



POINTERS 



FINISH YOUR JOB 




HEN you have taken a man's application, 
get him before the medical examiner, at 
the quickest possible moment. If he 
lives in the country and says he will go 
into town some day soon, do not agree to 
it . Tell him life insurance is for every day 
and he has no protection until he gets it. If he is busy 
and cannot leave his work tell him the doctor will be out 
that night and examine him. If the trip is too long for 
the doctor to make for the regular fee, pay the doctor 
the difference, but get them together. I have known an 
agent to take the farmer's place at the plough and work 
half a day and let the farmer drive into town for examin- 
ation, and it was a good idea. In these days of knockers 
and twisters and smart alecks who abound, the necessity 
of prompt medical examination ought to be understood 
without a hint. 



GET THAT SETTLEMENT NOW 



The time for the settlement is when the name goes 
on the **ap." When a man has reached the point 
where he signs for the policy he is at the proper point 
where he is ready to settle for it. Right there is a good 
place for the agent to fall down, and if he does it is his 
own fault. If you are worth your feed you have already 
learned how the applicant wants to settle and there is 
but one question as to when and that is now. I have 

84 



Objections and Answers 85 

known agents to work half a day to get an application 
and then lose out on the settlement, just because he 
figured that if he only got the *'ap.'' the rest was easy. 
Do not be afraid to talk business. If he asks you if you 
will take his note for the premium, tell him yes, pro- 
vided his note is good at the bank. That your company 
does not take notes, but if a little time is any accommo- 
dation to him and the bank will take his paper, you will 
do business with him that way. Tell him that you will 
have to get the note cashed and send the money to the 
company, and that when his policy comes he will find it 
is accompanied by a receipt from the home office for the 
first yearns premitim. He may put up a talk, that if his 
note is good at the bank, it ought to be good with the 
company. Come right back with the explanation that 
if he should die he would not expect the company to 
come around and want to settle with his widow with a 
lot of notes. It must be spot cash for her, and there- 
fore there is nothing but spot cash that goes with the 
company. He may say that he knows what you will do 
with the bank. You will do the same as these stal- 
lion sharpers do. Get the notes and then discount 
them for half their face at the bank. Tell him that if 
his note is not actually worth a hundred cents on the 
dollar he cannot buy life insurance with it, and if the 
bank asks a discount the deal is off. He may say that 
he does not want his note kicking around the bank but 
if you will agree to hold it yotirself, he will give it. If 
you are fool enough to agree to that, at least be honest 
enough to stick to yotir agreement. But you better 
tell him that you would be glad to do that but that you 
have not the money to invest in even his gilt edged paper ; 
you wish you had, but he will find his note in the bank 
where he can pay it when due, or arrange with his banker 
to carry it a while: that is what the bank is for. If he 



86 Objections and Answers 

says you may send the policy along and he will pay for 
it when it comes, tell him the cash must go in with the 
application, and you are instructed to give him a bind- 
ing receipt which guarantees the return of the payment 
if he does not get a policy after he has been examined by 
the regular examiner. Soften the whole thing up by 
saying that life insurance is different from most business. 
That it is like starting a bank account, and cannot be 
done with anything but cash or its equivalent. What- 
ever you do, get the settlement, or do not whine if you 
are stuck for a medical examination and are out your 
time and labor. 

JUMP RIGHT IN 

It not infrequently occurs on a field of every life 
agent that something comes up which demands atten- 
tion and which would necessitate considerable expense 
on the part of the home office to attend to, while the 
agent could do it with scarcely any cost or trouble. 
Always be ready to jump right into the breach and 
promptly attend to such matters, and let your home office 
understand that you are glad to be of service anywhere 
and anyhow on demand. Do not stop to consider the 
cost, or figure out what there may be in it for you. Re- 
member that the company's interests are your interests. 
Your commissions may constitute your only source of 
income, but they do not by any means constitute your 
only duty to the management. Your business is a 
broad one and the successful agent is the one who looks 
upon it in the broadest possible light. 

NAIL THE BACKSLIDER 

One of the most trying things that come our way 
is that of the man who signs up, settles for the policy, 



Objections and Answers 87 

and then backs out before he takes the examination, 
and it is right there that the agent^s patience and in- 
genuity are put to the greatest test. Either he has the 
work to do all over again, and is doubly handicapped by 
the new opposition of the applicant, or he may return 
the premium with a smile while inside he is swearing like 
a pirate. 

The better way, however, is to treat it as a purely 
business transaction and a closed incident. Before go- 
ing to see the backslider get your ammunition ready. 
Go to the post office and buy a post office order for the 
full amount of the premium and send it to the home 
office. Take the receipt with you and call on the man 
and put into your face all the sympathy you can sum- 
mon, if you have to borrow a supply from somebody for 
the occasion. Tell him that you are mighty sorry, but 
that you have already sent the money to the home 
office, and show him the receipt; that as much as you 
would like to accommodate him it is too late. That the 
only way under the sun that he can get his money back 
is for him to take the examination. If he is not insur- 
able he won't get a policy, and to look at the binding re- 
ceipt which you gave him, that provides for a return of 
the money if he is rejected. Put your doctor onto him, 
and above everything else see to it that the home office 
has the whole thing in detail. If he is foxy enough he 
will at once decide to fool 'em by so answering the ques- 
tions at the examination as to assure a rejection. You 
are right onto that scheme, and it is up to you to have a 
heart to heart talk with him along the line that any 
false answer to the examiner which he may make, will 
certainly be discovered, and that the courts would 
doubtless construe such false answer as an attempt to 
procure money under false representation and that is a 
penal offense punishable by fine or imprisonment or 



88 Objections and Answers 

both, at the discretion of the court. This line of argu- 
ment on your part is perfectly legitimate. You did 
your work honestly; sold him a good policy and are en- 
titled to your compensation, even if you have to scare the 
stuffing out of him to get it. Of course you go over again, 
the value of protection and use all the argtmients at 
your command to reconvert him, but if he is obstinate, 
determined and inclined to be ugly, smilingly bid him 
good-bye, hang onto the dough and let him whistle. If 
he goes to talking about having been beaten and is 
creating a bad impression in the neighborhood, tell 
the people just what happened; your helplessness in the 
matter and they will decide with you every time. If 
you emphasize the fact that every man ought to know 
his own mind and that you are in no wise responsible 
for such weakness, every mother's son of them will 
agree with you. 

KEEP POSTED 

It is difficult to estimate the value to the field man 
to be derived from the various Instirance Journals 
published in the country. Every Life Insurance man 
should subscribe for as many of the insurance periodi- 
cals as he can find the time to read and the money to 
pay for. You will find something in every issue that 
will help you write an **ap.'' and the money is well 
invested. 

THE CHAT AFTER THE *'AP.'' 

The time to have a real nice sociable chat with your 
prospect is after you have his **ap.'* in your pocket. 

You cannot talk Jersey cows, hogs, crops, produce 
and life insurance at the same time. Stick to your 



Objections and Answers 89 

subject. Cultivate a smiling front and, come what may, 
smile. If the other fellow gets hot or funny or abusive 
or personal, smile. Remember the old poem: 

** Laugh and the world laughs with you; 
Snore and you sleep alone. " 

YOUR CHIEF ASSET 

It means a good deal to have behind you a good com- 
pany which is well managed and whose policies are 
up-to-date and attractive. But the heart-beat of every 
company is the personality of the man on the field. 
The chief asset of the successful life agent is his own 
personality. 

USE YOUR EYES 

Make it an invariable rule that at no time while 
you are in close conversation with a prospect, shall he 
raise his eyes toward you and not meet your eyes look- 
ing squarely and frankly into his own. The human eye 
is the chief conductor of thought from brain to brain. 
Let your whole thought be centered upon your desire 
to impress the theme upon his mind and use your eyes 
steadily and intently as well as your voice. Never let 
him fail to meet your eye. A shifting eye that fails or 
quails is a worse handicap in our business than a broken 
jaw. 

LET THIS SOAK IN 

Never as long as you are in this business come at 
your prospect with the cost of the policy on the start. 



90 Objections and Answers 

Once get that thought in his mind and it will stick there 
to the utter exclusion of all else. If he asks what it will 
cost, do not hear him. Begin by showing him the table 
of values; the guaranteed reserves; the cash he can get 
from year to year; the extended insurance column; the 
paid up values, the terminal options of cash, paid up 
insurance and cash balance. Sandwich into the talk 
the constant protection, be enthusiastic and earnest, but 
skip the cost until you see that you have gotten him fully 
interested in the matter, and then never use the word 
''cost*' at all. Call it a bank account and refer to the 
premitims as ''deposits'' and all through, from the inter- 
view, sell him a bank account that will come back to him 
in the end. Then, when you are ready for it, show him 
what he is to deposit yearly. Thus you create the 
demand and stand a good show of supplying it. When a 
man really wants a thing the cost is of secondary con- 
sideration. Until he does really want it, the cost is his 
chief consideration. Let this soak in. It will come 
handy. 

CUT IT WIDE OPEN 

Some time you will go against the man who says 
that you may take his application and send him a policy 
and if it suits him he will send you the premium. He is, 
perhaps, a man that is as good as gold and could buy 
anything he wanted and have the bill sent to him, and 
does not stop to think that life insurance differs from 
any other commodit^T- in this respect. You dislike to 
refuse him but you know that there is unlimited oppor- 
tunity for a backout on such a proposition, however well 
meaning your man may be. In this case there is abso- 
lutely but one way to proceed, and that is to "cut it wide 
open" and tell him the facts. Tell him that you are 



Objections and Answers 91 



willing to go in writing that if, when the policy arrives, 
it is not exactly as represented and corresponds with 
the figures which you will leave with him, he may re- 
turn it to you without expense, if he will also go in writ- 
ing that if it is as represented and the figures do agree, 
he will take it and pay for it. He will at once ask you 
what difference there is between that proposition and 
his. Then tell him this: 

**Well, my friend, there is just this difference. You 
say that when the policy comes if it suits you you will 
take it. I tell you just what it is, and you are suited 
well enough to make your proposition. I see what is on 
your mind, but you do not see what is on my mind. 
Suppose I send you the policy and it is exactly as rep- 
resented, and for some reason you have changed your 
mind so that no policy would suit you ; you could return 
it and I would have to pay for the medical examination 
and be out all my time and effort in selling you the policy, 
which you will admit has been no easy task. You are 
now as well able to say whether it will suit you as you 
v/ill ever be. I guarantee that you get exactly what I 
have shown you, and you guarantee that if so, you will 
take it. This is, as you will agree, good business. You 
are sure that you get what you buy or you do not pay 
for it. I will write right here on the application blank 
which goes to the home office, the agreement that if it 
is as represented you will pay for it within thirty days 
from the day it is received, and if not so, you will return 
it at once. If that is not fair, and you cannot meet me 
half way on it when the guaranty is all in your favor, I 
see no way by which we can come together on the deal. " 

This is a case where the greatest frankness is necessary 
and if he still refuses to do that, unless 3^ou have the 
money to throw away for the examination, you better 
fold your traps like the Arab and quietly steal away. 



92 Objections and Answers 

WHO LIED? 

Sometimes a letter is received at the home office 
couched in terms somewhat like this: 

"Gentlemen: — 

*' A few days ago your agent, Mr. (yourself) sold me 
a policy which I herewith return to you because it is 
not as represented. He swore that when I had paid 
twenty years I would get all my money back, and he is 
a blankety blanked liar. He guaranteed it would be 
an endowment policy and it says right on the policy 
that it is a twenty pay limited pay policy. I want you 
to send me at once the money I paid or I will 
have the agent arrested for getting money under false 
representation and sue you for damages. I am 
responsible and mean what I say. I will give you just 
ten days to make good. Then you will hear some- 
thing drop. 

** Yours truly, 

GiVAD AM Jones.'* 

Then you will see the foolishness of talking two kinds 
of a policy to a man. If you have started out on an 
endowment, stick to the endowment. If you have to 
change to a cheaper policy, be sure to explain it as it 
is, and leave the figures with Mm as they will appear on 
the policy which you sold him. When he has once gotten 
the endowment settlement into his head, he will swear 
by all the gods that it is what he bought. If you have 
not done this the probabilities are that his letter is a 
mighty sight nearer the truth than the basis on which 
you sold the policy. You can bet your last penny that 
your company will stick right by you unless they have 
good reason to believe the other fellow, and the proof of 



Objections and Answers 93 

the wisdom of their confidence in you, lies in the figures 
which you left with the applicant. He must either pro- 
duce them and prove his claim or pay up. The old 
excuse that you did talk an endowment at first but he 
decided to take a twenty pay life may go for once or 
twice, but it gets monotonous after a while, and in the 
long run results in your dismissal under a cloud. 

**Are you in earnest? Seize this very minute, 
What you can do or dream you can, begin it; 
Boldness has genius, power and magic in it. 
Only engage and then the mind grows heated; 
Begin and then the work will be completed. '' 

Goethe. 



OBJECTIONS AND ANSWERS 

'' I do not want anything that I have to die to get, '* 

*'My friend, did you ever stop to think that you 
will have to die to get to heaven? '* 



*' I can't afford it,*' 

"If with your earning power you cannot afford to 
pay the premium on a policy, what about the loved ones 
after you are taken away and your earnings cease ? * ' 

** 7 got beaten once on a policy and that's plenty, " 

*'My friend, just because you think you were beaten 
once, is that any reason why you should visit punishment 
on your loved ones by beating them out of their bread 
and butter after you are taken away?'' 

*'/ can make more money hy raising calves, *' 

*'Is it better to leave a bunch of hungry calves to 
be fed by a hungry wife than it is to leave $2000 in cash 
to feed the babies?*' 






/ can do better by putting my money out at interest, *' 
It takes fifty dollars eighteen years to double itself 
/at four percent compound interest. Fifty dollars 
laid up in a life policy means forty times fifty dollars in 
spot cash if you die, and what assurance have you that 
you will live to lay up even fifty dollars in any other 
way?" 

*' I will risk it,** 

''But, my dear man, you cannot risk it if you want to. 
It's those who are dependent upon you that carry the 

94 



Objections and Answers 95 

risk. As long as you live and have your health you will 
care for your family. Put the risk onto a good life insur- 
ance company and not leave it on their shoulders to 
add to their burdens after your death.'* 

'' If I knew where the premiums were coming from I would 
take it.'' 
"When your girl-wife put her hand in yours and 
said *y^s ' did you stop to figure out where every sack of 
flour was coming from? Not much. And yet she took 
the risk, and you made good, didn't you ? But how 
about it if your strong arm fails and she is left alone? 
Honestly, do you think you are acting quite square by 
her?'' 

^'Suppose the company busts. " 

**Not one old line life insurance company has failed 
since you were bom. " 

**/ have made up my mind not to carry life insurance and 
I am a man that don't change his mind. " 
**If Grant had not changed his mind we would have 
lost the war. If mistaken men never changed their 
minds, no sinner would ever be saved. " 



*'/ am going to take up life insurance later, but am not 
ready yet." 
** * Later' may read *too late.' Life insurance is for 
every day and every hour — every minute. The orphan's 
homes are crowded with helpless little ones whose loving 
but mistaken fathers intended to protect them later. I 
am right here to help you to get ready to do it now. " 






My wife won't let me insure. " 
I have met several wives who argued against it. 



96 Objections and Answers 

but I never met a widow who said anything against life 
insurance, did you?*' 

**/ have plenty to leave my family ^ and therefore do not 
need it,*' 
**You are to be congratulated on your industry, 
thrift, and good luck. But adversity may come through 
no mismanagement of your own, and your property 
disappear before you die. Suppose your physician told 
you that you or some member of your family had cancer 
of the stomach and you knew that meant many years of 
treatment, surgical operations and great expense. You 
would cheerfully spend the last dollar if necessary to 
save that one's life, wouldn't you? In that case, with 
all your present wealth, you might die a pauper. You 
cannot die poor if you leave behind a good life policy, 
and by your own confession you are able to carry a good 
big one." 

**I do not propose to leave a lot of money for some other 
man to blow in,** 
**Do you prefer to leave your wife in such shape 
that she will be forced to marry some miserable scalla- 
wag in order to keep the children together, and compel 
her to live in hell the rest of her life ? You never thought 
of that or you would not have said what you did." 

**/ have not the money at present and will not go in debt, ** 
* * Buying life insurance is not going in debt. It is start- 
ing a bank account and adding the face of the policy to 
your assets. You are actually worth just that much 
more when your policy is issued. " 



(< 



/ expect to live fifty years yet, " 
*'I hope you may for if you do you will be able to 



Objections and Answers 97 

mature two life policies and establish an old age fund 
that will assiure you every comfort in your last days. '' 



^' My father carried insurance for thirty years, and then the 
lodge busted and he lost every penny he had paid in, 
*'If your father was insured for thirty years before 
the lodge busted he had protection as long as the lodge 
lived and he had no kick coming. For all those years 
he was paying much less than his protection cost and 
that is just what busted the lodge. If he had taken an old 
line policy on the start, and not tried to get something 
for nothing, he would have had his policy paid up in 
twenty years or could have cashed it in and had the 
money to use. The same applies to you right now. *' 



1 
\ 



it 



I must wait until I am out of debt, *' 

Who will pay your debts if you die? Don't you 
think you ought to carry enough life insurance to take 
care of these debts and give your wife at least an even 
start when she is left alone? It is bad enough to leave 
her penniless, but it is a crime to leave her loaded down 
with debts to add to her other responsibilities." 



tt 



I can save my money myself. " 

Of course you can, and I am trying to show how you 
can do it to your own best advantage." 

** My taxes are so high that I cannot pay out any money 
for other things.'' 
**Well, if you did not own any property you would 
have no taxes to pay. But your life insurance property is 
the only property you own that you never have to pay 
taxes on." 



98 Objections and Answers 



*'But it costs too much. I can get protection in a lodge 
for one half what you charge. '' 
** Any old line twenty year endowment policy, whether 
in a mutual or a stock company, is cheaper protection 
than you can get in any lodge on earth, and I will prove it 
to you right now. At your age, 35, your premitmi is 
$43.80. When you have paid in four years, or $175.20, 
you are insured for the full face of the policy for fourteen 
years longer. That is, you have eighteen years of pro- 
tection for $175.20, or $9.73 per year, which is cheaper 
than any lodge can furnish it, and besides, during tho 
last fourteen years you paid nothing and therefore could 
not lapse or be suspended. These figures are on a non- 
participating policy. If you take a participating policy 
the figures diflEer slightly, but the annual dividends come 
in to reduce the cost and the results are approximately 
the same. Who ever told you that lodge protection 
was cheaper than old line? *' 

*' Welly to tell you the truth I have no confidence in the state- 
ments made by life insurance agents. ' * 
**You do not need to have confidence in the agent 
in order to know what you are buying. Read the policy 
yourself.*' 

** Suppose the agent does not have a sample policy for me 
to look at.** 
''Then tell him to get one; that you are no 'sight 
unseen' man. You may be absolutely certain that every 
old line company is all right and that their contracts will 
be kept to the letter, and if the agent does not carry a 
sample policy and produce it for your examination, it's 
dollars to doughnuts that he is a liar and is trying to do 
you up. The policy is what you buy and you should read 
it for yourself . " 



Objections and Answers 99 

''There is a big difference between the Agent's talk and the 
policies y I have discover ed,'' 
**In that case you should profit by your discovery. 
The policy will tell you the truth — the agent might not. 
If you bought a horse of a man whom you did not 
know and without looking at the horse, you would not 
squeal if you were skinned. But nobody could sell you a 
horse that way. You ought to use as good judgment in 
buying protection for your family as you would in buying 
an old horse. Your own good sense tells you that you 
ought to buy life insurance, and that same good sense 
will tell you the kind to buy. Use it. " 

*' If I take a policy and die next week I leave $2000 and 

that is getting something for nothing. That is not 

right.'' 

**Did you put up that kind of a speel when you got 

your wife ? You was glad enough to get something for 

nothing that time, wasn't you? Now don't let your 

conscience cause you to die and leave that something 

with nothing. '' 






Suppose my wife dies first, who will get the money?" 
If you do not live to get it yourself it will go to 
your children, or if no children, then to your nearest 
relative.*' 






Suppose my wife runs away with another fellow. " 
In that case, get a divorce and marry some woman 
who knows enough to stick to a good thing when she 
gets it ; change the beneficiary to protect her, which can 
be done without cost, and keep up your policy. " 






Suppose I do not want to get married again, " 

In that case do not wait for a divorce but change 



100 Objections and Answers 

the beneficiary to the children, if there are any, otherwise 
to any relative. " 

^'Suppose I cannot pay the premium some year, then I 
would lose all I had paid in.** 
'*Not by any means. When you have paid the third 
premium the policy will carry itself several years longer : 
after the fourth year, it runs still longer, and so on until 
the twentieth year, when it is paid up for life. *' 






When will you be around again?** 
The Lord only knows. The next time I meet you 
it may be in heaven. Or I may come again in a month 
and find you either under the sod, or you may have 
taken cold, contracted a cough or rheumatism and 
are not insurable and cannot get a policy at any price. 
You are a good risk now, and now is the time to 
take it.'* 

*'Has the company an agent here?** 
** Yes sir. (l am right here now, ** 



^l 



Welly I like your policy and will promise you that I will 
mot take any insurance in any other company until 
I see you again,** 

'* Do not make such a promise. |I am no robber. " 



** What do you mean by that?** 

**WeU, suppose I accepted such a promise and held 
you to it and you turned down all other agents and 
you were taken away by sickness or accident and left 
your family with no money to go on, before I got around 
to write you up. Don't you see how I have helped to 
rob them by such a promise? Let me write you now. 



Objections and Answers loi 

If you will not I want you to promise me that you will 
take insurance in some good company right away. You 
will never find a better company or a better contract 
than the one I offer you, but do not wait/' 

-■* 
*' Well, you go over and see my brother. If he takes it I 
wilir 
**What has your brother to do with the protection 
to your family? Did you wait for your brother to get 
married and then go after his wife's sister, or pick out 
your wife for yourself? Do you consult him before 
you buy a new dress for your wife, or shoes for your 
children?" 






No, hut I respect his judgment in all matters of business,'' 
That is good, but there are htmdreds of men whose 
judgment your brother respects. Here is a list of 
policyholders in our company right in your own county, 
many of whom you know personally. Don't you hon- 
estly think that the judgment displayed by such men as 
these is more valuable in any business matter than the 
judgment of any one man, even that of your brother? " 






Are all these men insured in your company V 

Yes sir. Ring any of them up on the 'phone at 
my expense and ask them. Also ask them what they 
think about our company, and if they would advise you 
to insure with us." 






I carry my insurance with God above r 

Well, my good man, are you sure that you have 
it fully paid up so you cannot under any circumstances 
lapse the policy ? I admit that the most important con- 
sideration for you and your loved ones is the certain 



102 Objections and Answers 

salvation of your souls. But many a good Christian 
man has gone to his reward and, through a mistaken 
sense of trust, has left his wife so destitute that she 
could not keep the children together. These children 
were forced to drift away from home and her Christian 
influence and became criminals, and in the end lost both 
body and soul. 

And this, too, because the father, in his mistaken 
ideas failed to provide a competence for them after his 
death. God will not do anything for a man or his fam- 
ily that the man can do for himself. When you have 
done your full duty, to the uttermost, then, and only 
then, can you hold God responsible for the results. It 
is as much your Christian duty to leave your home and 
family protected after your death as it is to provide for 
their wants while you are alive. It ma^^ be that the 
Good Lord has set your place for you and you cannot 
seem to get above your present environment and it 
takes nearly all yotu: earnings to make and maintain a 
Christian home for the loved ones. In doing this, 37'ou 
are required to use great economy, and you are unable 
to amass an estate that will assure a continuance of the 
home after you are taken away. But the same good 
Lord has put it in the minds of men to provide against 
such a condition as often occurs, by Life Insurance. It 
is something which you can not only work for but pray 
for.*' 

''Lots of women are worse off when left with a lot of money 
than they would be without any, '* 

**Does that apply to your wife?" 

**No, of course not. But there are such women 
and you cannot deny it." 

**True, there may be such women, but you are, not 
intending to leave your money to them, are you?" 



Objections and Answers 103 

"I don't know as I will have any money to leave to 
anybody.'* 

*'That is true of all of us. None of us can look ahead 
with any certainty in the matter of dollars and cents. 
That is just the reason that the best men everywhere 
are hedging against that uncertainty by carrying life 
insurance. That absolutely settles it.'* 

'* My church is opposed to life insurance.'* 

**Will your chiurch take care of your widow and or- 
phans when you are gone?*' 

*' Was there not a great deal of money lost to the insured as 
a result of the exposures ajid investigations of those 
Eastern companies f 

** Yes sir. I am sorry to say, there was.'* 

''But life insurance agents say not, and even the 
managers of those companies that were under fire claim 
that they were and still are perfectly solvent." 

**That is true. They were and still are perfectly 
solvent." 

*'Then how is it that j^ou admit that there was great 
loss to their policyholders?" 

*'I beg pardon, you did not say 'policyholders' before. 
You said 'loss to the insured.' " 

"What is the difference?" 

"Just this: No policyholder lost a penny. It was 
the policy-droppers who lost. As a direct result of the 
agitation some policyholders became timid and lapsed, 
and the lapser is a loser every time in any good company. 
We lose sight of the fact that a policy increases in value 
every year of its life, and to drop it is to lose this in- 
creased value, as well as the protection, which possibly 
cannot be obtained again at any price, and certainly not 
at the same cost. It seems strange that any man will 



104 Objections and Answers 

defatilt on any contract that is rapidly increasing in 
value, but some men do it, nevertheless. No persistent 
policyholder ever did or ever can lose on an old line 
policy. Living or dying he is a sure winner.** 

^^ Suppose all the policyholders in your company should 
die at the same time. Where would your company be 
then?'' 
"It would be with the whole himian race in eternity 

and beyond the use for life insurance.** 

**How so? You have not the whole human family insured 
in your company, have you?'' 
**Well, hardly. But what visitation human or divine 
is going to single out our policyholders and kill them all 
off at once and skip the other fellows?** 

'*But suppose some unheard-of epidemic sweeps over the 

country and kills off half of your policyholders at once. 

Could your company pay its losses in full and still 

survive?" 

'*No. Nor anything else. In that case the death 

rate of the country would be fully ninety percent of the 

population and with nine men out of every ten dead, the 

life agent that escaped would not have to do much talking 

to sell life insurance to the survivors.** 

** Suppose an epidemic swept over this county and killed 

half of the people, where would the company be then?" 

''This is all nonsense. "Nothing like that has occurred 

since the flood. The greatest war |in all history never 

killed one fourth of the fighters.'* 






I regard Life Insurance as contrary to the Bible." 
Can you quote any Bible objections to it?*' 



Objections and Answers 105 

** Yes. ' Take no heed for the morrow.' * I have been 
young and now am I old and yet have I not seen the 
righteous forsaken or his seed begging bread.' *A11 
things work together for good to those who love the 
Lord.' 'Cast your burdens on the Lord.'" 

**Do you know that the constitution and by-laws 
of the first life insurance company were printed in the 
Bible?" 

"No." 

**Have you not read about Joseph and his dream 
and its interpretation by the wise men?" 

*''Yes." 

•*'Do you believe that his vision of the seven fat 
kine followed by the seven lean kine was a warning of 
the seven years of plenty to be followed by the seven 
years of famine, and that those wise men properly 
interpreted that dream?" 

"Yes, I think so." 

"Well, was not that assessment levied on all during 
the plenteous years to provide against the famine a 
pure life insurance proposition?" 

"You could scarcely call that life insurance." 

"What then, would you call it?" 

" It was a preparation against an impending calamity." 

"Is not life insurance a preparation against an im- 
pending calamity? " 
Possibly, in a sense." 

Positively in every sense. What about this: *He 
that provideth not for those of his own household is 
worse than an infidel.'" 

"Certainly we must care for them as long as we live." 

"And then what?" 
Trust in God." 

What about the Scriptural injunction to care for 
the widows and orphans?" 



It 
tt 



it 
tt 



io6 Objections and Answers 



'* Well, you may be right, but I have gotten it into my 
head that the Bible opposed life insurance/' 

'*My good man, if you will look up the Scriptures 
you may be surprised to learn that it endorses life 
insurance and even reprimands mankind for neglecting so 
sacred a duty, while in no place can you find a word 
against it. I would not for a moment impugn your 
motives, for every one who knows you speaks of your 
purity of life and purpose, but I am as certain that God 
endorses the forethought in his children that prompts 
them to prepare for the bodily welfare of their loved 
ones when they are taken away, as he does for their 
spiritual welfare while they live. Give me credit for 
sincerity in this and look it up for yourself.*' 

**7 am too busy today hut I will call at your office tomorrow 
at two o'clock and give my application. '' 
**My friend, you may be busier tomorrow than you 
are today and I will save your time by calling here 
promptly at two o'clock, and if I find you busy I will 
wait until you are at leisure." 



<< 



/ have an old line policy for two thousand dollars that 
I pay $64 a year for, and that guarantees to pay me 
$2000 in cash besides the accumulated dividends.'' 
'* I will give you $25 if you will show me such a policy. 

**Hail may strike and clean me out. Fll wait until after 
harvest.'* 
*' Lightning may strike you and knock you out without 
waiting for anything." 



I have not the ready money and I swore I would never 

give my note again to any man." 
**Make your note payable to yourself, put your 



Objections and Answers 107 

own name on the back and take it up yourself when it 
is due/' 

''Keezel offered to sell me a policy in his company for forty 
percent discount on the first payment,'* 
*'If the company that Keezel represents allows him to 
do that it is crooked and you had better steer clear of it/' 

**How much will you give me off the first year if I take it 
in your company ?'' 
**Not one single penny. One hundred cents on the 
dollar are our terms to everybody/' 

''I am contemplating going into the saloon business. Does 
that make any difference?'' 

*'Not in the least, for if that is the case we won't 
sell you a policy anyhow." 

**But suppose I got a policy and then started a saloon, 
you couldn't cancel the policy, could you?" 

**We prefer to not have that trouble. If it is your 
intention to go into that business, you had better get 
your policy in some company that writes that kind of 
risks, if you can find one." 

**/ cannot hear to think of dying and leaving my wife my 

hard-earned money y and she to marry another fellow and 

blow it in," 

**If it hurts you so much to think of that possibility, 

quit it. But I would father leave my wife so that if she 

ever does marry again it will be for the same reason that 

she married me — ^for love. I would rather know that she 

was living happily with a good man than have her go 

on through life alone and giving as her reason that she 

* had lived with one man and that was enough.' That 

would be a fine slam on my record as a husband, wouldn't 



io8 Objections and Answers 

it? The greatest tribute she could pay to my memory 
would be to get right into the game again with another 
lucky fellow." 



(( 



If I die and leave my {wife a lot of money her relatives 
will coax it away from her. She can't say no. Or 
she might invest it and lose it and be worse off than 



ever'' 



*'Do you think that because she did not say *N0' 
when you popped the question that she couldn't say it ? 
She might surprise you. But why should you leave 
her a lot of money in bulk anyhow? Why not carry a 
larger policy on the annuity settlement plan and leave 
her a splendid pension? Such a policy is much cheaper. 
A Ten Thousand Dollar policy will give her Five Hundred 
Dollars a year for twenty years, or a Five Thousand 
Dollar policy will give her Five Hundred Dollars a year 
for ten years. In this way she will be provided for and 
cannot loan it because she is good hearted nor lose it 
because she is poor headed. Look at these coupons. 
Each represents five hundred dollars which she can tear 
oflE as they fall due and get them cashed at any bank. 
Nobody can borrow or dissipate her pension, and the 
company holds it sacred as a trust ftmd and it cannot 
be lost. Just look at that rate and figure it out for 
yourself. It is a crackerjack.*' 



THE ACTUARY 




HE Actuary, in addition to being a mathe- 
matical genius who knows the multipli- 
cation table up to the fifties and can say 
it backwards, must know the minute de- 
tails of the business from top to bottom. 
He not only knows the "why*' but the 
"how" of every real or imaginable subject pertaining to 
the business. From the president down to the sub-agent 
every ** sticker '* is referred to him, and he cannot be stuck 
either. Who ever heard of a single instance where the 
Actuary ** didn't know '7 

He is the Joe Cannon of the whole outfit, and when- 
ever we are up against it for an answer we can success- 
fully cover our ignorance by looking wise and saying it is 
an actuarial proposition that can only be answered by the 
Actuary. It sounds good and leaves the impression that 
you know what you are talking about. 

He is a safety valve for the management and an es- 
cape valve for the field man. May blessings attend him. 



109 



THE SUPERINTENDENT OF AGENCIES 




HIS office is the one job in the whole bunch 
that we fellows on the field are after. 
Gee ! but it is a snap. We don't see why 
those wiseacres up there at the home office 
don't give some of us a whack at it. We 
are just as capable of wearing diamonds 
and riding in parlor cars, and stopping at six-doUar-a-day 
hotels as anybody. We know as well how to be a good 
mixer as the next man, and we can tell the agents just as 
big stories about the record-breaking business that **we 
used to write*' as he can. He don't have to carry appli- 
cation blanks and sample policies any more but he invari- 
ably carries a rate book, and tells us how he made it. He 
has the Taft smile and the Bryan vocabulary. So have 
we. Any one of us can do all that and then some. 

When our field is gloomy and the clouds hang over 
us like a pall, down comes the S. of A. with a big stock 
of sunshine and his visit is like that of the first robin 
in springtime. He laughs and jollies us and takes us 
out to a swell dinner, smokes our cigars, tells us how 
he used to do it, draws on the home office for expenses, 
buys a compartment in a sleeper and is off for the next 
storm center; we watch the train pull out of the shed 
and it takes us three days to get back into the sweat 
collar. 

iHe seemed to know every curve in the game, and 
airily spoke of the President as '* Charles," called the 
Vice-president *'Mac," the medical examiner *'Doc," 
and the whole bunch collectively *'the boys." It's a 
far cry from writing a Scandihoovian at ten o'clock at 

no 



Objections and Answers iii 

night and then driving an old wind-broken horse ten 
miles to a cheap hotel and cheaper bed, to the berth held 
by the Superintendent of Agencies, but it's the road they 
all traveled, to let them tell it, so we should not be dis- 
couraged. True, there is a heap of difference between 
our job and his, but there is one good thing in our favor — 
we can hold onto ours in spite of fate, for one ''ap. '* a 
week holds it, while three or four a week cinches it 
for all time, and any more than that will call for *' favor- 
able mention" in the company's monthly, and we may, 
by some unexpected streak of good luck, get our pictiire 
and a *' write up'' in that publication. 

All this goes to show how little the field man really 
knows about the duties and responsibilities of the suc- 
cessful Superintendent of Agencies. His responsibilities 
encompass the whole field of operations, while ours are 
limited to the territory which he has assigned us. On 
his energies and ability largely depends the growth of the 
company from year to year. He must be able to pro- 
cure agents who will produce business in sufficient vol- 
tmie to put the company in the **gain" coltmm every 
year. Moreover, that business must be procured at a 
cost within the range of the required ratios. He must 
be a splendid judge of men and conditions and must be 
endowed by the creator with a personality so charming 
as to cause his field force to stick to him through thick 
and thin. He must expose his anatomy to every kick, 
and his patience to every complaint, and by a constant 
application of prayer and poultices keep his physical 
and spiritual parts in such complete working order as to 
be able to bob up serenely and smilingly on every occa- 
sion. He must excuse the vices and extol the virtues of 
the field force, and must be so filled with the fires of en- 
thusiasm that he smokes. He will argue with the Presi- 
dent, plead with the Medical Director, and fight with the 



112 Objections and Answers 

Chief Accountant, in the interests of the field man. He 
is the motive power — the steam generator of the great 
machine that drives the business to success. The an- 
nual report showing **new business written,'* gauges his 
tenure of office, and every day and hour and minute of 
the calendar year is spent with his thoughts centered on 
this single item. He is the connecting link between the 
head and tail of the combination : the magnet that draws 
from the depths the chippings of steel to be welded into 
pillars of strength upon which the foundation of the 
structure is builded. 

But all the same, it is a job that the weakest agent 
thinks he could handle and would like to tackle, even if 
he didn't last longer than a feather in Hades. 



THE MEDICAL DIRECTOR 




^)HE Medical Director comes in for more 
* * cussings ' ' than a baseball umpire. Some 
of the field men seem to picture him as a 
red-dressed devil with horns and a forked 
tail sitting in a sulphuric haze, with an 
**ap/* on his desk and a rubber stamp 
marked "rejected*' uplifted and with a sardonic grin of 
demoniacal glee on his fiendish face, always in the act 
of knocking the agent out of his commissions. They 
have a faint idea that he is really and truly looking 
after the interests of the company, but will admit it only 
when the mutilated **ap/' that has met its fate in his 
slaughter pen was written by the "other fellow.*' But 
his laws are immutable and his decision final, and letters 
of protest, whether pleading or belligerent have no more 
effect upon this august personage than the fall of the 
morning dew on the rock-ribbed siurf ace of Gibraltar. He 
is the storm center of the field man's disturbances; the 
heartless destroyer that hangs on his trail like an aveng- 
ing nemesis. The Medical Director is a breeder of tuber- 
culosis, for does he not make the poor solicitor "cough 
up" his commissions until he becomes a confirmed con- 
sumptive? 

Every mother's son of us has at one time or an- 
other had a battle royal with him, and how he can hold 
his job in the face of such an avalanche of kicks and 
protests and threats and insinuations as fall on his desk 
from the field force is more of a mystery than the origin 
of the pyramids. Sometimes he will answer a letter but 
more times he won't, which is one of the prerogatives of 

113 



114 Objections and Answers 

his high and mighty office. But through it all, there he 
sits unmoved and immovable. Supreme in his power 
and as bloodless as a sphinx, every effort that ingen- 
uity can call forth or imagination conceive has been 
wasted by the field man in an effort to /'get solid'' with 
his department, but without avail. He knows neither 
friend nor foe in his work of destruction. He won't 
even deign to tell you the cause for rejecting an appli- 
cant whom everybody for twenty miles around knows 
is tougher than a boiled owl and never saw a sick day 
in his life. We get the regulation notice printed on 
yellow paper, that reads : 

**The Medical Department regrets the necessity of 
informing you that under the rules of the company 
the application of Wm. Whatswrong has been indefi- 
nitely postponed. " 

Dig up and don't kick. Don't tear around like 
a mad bull over a red flag. It's no use. You couldn't 
see a cussed thing wrong with that *'ap." and you looked 
forms * ' B " and * * C " over a dozen times to see if there was 
the least shade on it, and it was as clear as a bell, but 
the gimlet-eyed genius up there at the home office ferreted 
out something with a magnifying glass and ** turned it 
down" and by the gods there's got to be a change or 
you'll quit and let the company go to ruin. Ah! you 
know what you'll do, you won't submit to any further 
indignities from that department. You'll take it higher 
up. You'll put the whole thing over his head and seek 
justice from the President. So you write the President 
a letter and it is a hummer. You sat up half the night 
to prepare it and you know it was a himidinger. Then, 
instead of going out like a little man and refunding the 
premitmi to the rejected applicant, you sit around the 



Objections and Answers 115 

house and brag about the great letter you have written, 
let some other agent *' close up'* your ** leads*' in the 
neighborhood, and wait for the President's answer. 
Do you get it? Oh, yes, you get it and it is smoother 
than oil. It's a fine letter, and is quite a long one too, 
and you read it over and over again, and it dawns 
on your egotistical brain at last that all it contains is 
the statement that there is no appeal from the decision 
of your arch enemy with the cloven hoof; that his de- 
partment is above criticism; that one of your stock ar- 
guments on the field is the exceptionally low death rate 
of the company, on account of its selection of risks, etc., 
etc., and you dig up, and go out with a rush to try and 
make up lost time. But you mentally swear that the 
first time you go to the home office you'll give that 
Medical Director a piece of your mind. When you do 
go to the home office, and they take you into his office, 
your breath fails and all the sand runs out of your sys- 
tem when the smoothest and finest gentleman you ever 
met gets up and grasps your hand with a squeeze of a 
long lost brother; he insists on your sitting down, and 
asks your advice on several *' aps." that are in the ** hospi- 
tal" (none of yours, mind you) and before you know it, 
you are not only agreeing with him, but sympathizing 
with him over his great responsibilities. And if you 
have been really devilish in your treatment of his depart- 
ment, he literally heaps coals of fire on your head by 
insisting that you become his guest at luncheon, and 
he talks and laughs, but not a word about your own 
troubles or the troubles you have made him, and you 
part with him at last with the feeling that you have 
gotten a little farther into his confidence than any other 
of the field men. Nixy. He has been doing that same 
thing for years, and will use the red stamp on the very 
next application that you send in, if it is not a first class 



ii6 Objections and Answers 

risk, with not even the shadow of a thought of you or 
your visit. He rides above criticism, scorns advice, nor 
turns a hair's breadth to swerve an iota from the straight 
line of duty. 

You may cuss him, you may hate him, you may 
malign him, but you can't bluff him and don't you for- 
get it. He is not a bull dog of obstinacy ; he is a bulwark 
of safety to your company. 



THE MEDICAL EXAMINER 




HAT a lot of darned fools there are who 
get the appointment as Medical Examiner 
for our company ! What right have they 
to lay claim to any professional pride? 
They are too darned finicky. They insist 
on getting a straight answer to every 
question, and are too thundering technical. They won't 
even examine an applicant if the agent is in the room, 
and he might be a whole lot of help to him, too, by timely 
suggestions. Suppose the applicant did have one brother 
die of tuberculosis and another died about the same age 
and he ** don't know*' what he died of. Why not say so 
and let it go at that, and not go hunting around among 
the relatives for the knowledge of the cause of death. 
The applicant is healthy, isn't he? Then what's the use 
of such tomfoolery? Suppose the applicant did have a 
slight discharge from his left ear for a while. It quit, 
didn't it ? Then why need the fool Examiner write down 
a lot of stuff that indicates that there may have been 
some disease of the inner ear. He knows that would 
cause a rejection. What if the applicant did have a piece 
of bone cut out of his shin awhile ago. He don't limp 
any, does he ? What the deuce is the use of raking up 
that old operation? If the fool doctor keeps at it long 
enough he may be able to make out a case of tuberculosis 
of the bone. 

Who in thunder knows the exact age of all his grand- 
parents? If he says they all lived in the old country and 
he lost track of them, what's the sense in looking up a 

117 



ii8 Objections and Answers 

living brother or a sister of the applicant to find out what 
they know about it ? It's all rot. 

Suppose the applicant is 5 feet and 9 inches tall and 
weighs 204 pounds. 

That's only ten pounds over weight and his clothes 
and shoes weigh more than that. But the doctor 
will hold up the ''ap.'' a week to get the man to a pair of 
scales, just because that is in the printed instructions of 
the Company, and perhaps the applicant will back out 
before he gets onto the scales. 

[It's enough to make a man swear a blue streak to 
go back to a doctor and tell him he has forgotten to put 
down the results of the urinalysis and have him look up 
with a face as devoid of expression as a pumpkin and ex- 
plain that at the time of the examination he could not 
get a specimen, but the applicant is going to bring it in 
the next time he comes to town. Why could he not fill 
it in? The applicant is otherwise all right, is he not? 
Any fool could say that the color is amber, specific grav- 
ity 1020, and that there were no traces of sugar or al- 
bumin, and let it go at that. The applicant does not 
get up nights and never had any disease of the kidneys, 
nor pains in his back, and says so in the proper place on 
the blank. You could ''fix it" yourself if the company 
did not photograph the thing and hitch it to the policy. 
That's another fool thing. 

If the examiner don't know how to get a specimen, 
I'll tell him a trick that he ought to have known 
years ago. Tell the applicant to put his hands in cold 
water a 'minute. It never fails, — if he is bound to have 
a specimen which don't amount to a cuss anyway. 

Now, Mr. Agent, if you talk that way and mean 
what you 3ay, you are an insiH*ance leper and ought to 
be quarantined. 

**You are in the right chtuch but the wrong pew." 



Objections and Answers 119 

You are no more fit to belong to the great army of life 
underwriters than a rattlesnake in a baby's cradle. You 
are more dangerous at large than a man in the third 
stage of bubonic plague. If you could find an examiner 
as unscrupulous as yotirself you would put all the grave- 
yard risks onto your company and gloat over the in- 
creased death rate. But with all your smartness and 
crookedness you are practically harmless, because be- 
tween your dishonesty and the company stands a bul- 
wark of safety in an honest and conscientious examiner. 
A physician whom the managers have investigated and 
appointed to do his work right, and a gentleman who 
places honor above dollars, and from a sense of duty 
rigidly follows the instructions which accompanied his 
certificate of appointment as examiner. 




STRAIGHT GOODS 

YOUNG fellow who had recently started in 
the business, and whose zeal was evidently 
in excess of his conscience, came into his 
manager's office one day all out of breath 
and said: *'Say, Boss, I can sell an old 
back number out in the country a big 
policy if there is any way we can make him believe he 
will get all his money back with interest. He is fifty- 
nine years old and it's a big thing. Won't you go out 
with me and help me land him? " 

The manager said he would go out with him but 
admonished the young man to keep still and not butt in 
at any stage of the game but to listen carefully how such 
deals were handled. They arrived at the farm and here 
is what the manager said: 

**Mr. , you have been considering taking a life 

insurance policy and I came out to explain it to you. 
You are aware that at your age the cost of carrying your 
protection is much higher than it would be if you had 
taken it thirty years ago, but all the same, it is the safest 
place to put money, and the protection is as good as 
though you were thirty years younger. The best policy 
for you at your age is a Ten Year Endowment, because 
you will in all probability live to mature it. We will 
sell you that kind of a policy, which does not earn you 
any dividends, but is guaranteed to pay you the face 
if you die and the face if you live, for $107.30 a year. 
For every time you pay $i07.3o'we agree to return you an 
even hundred of it, if you live, sojthat you get your pro- 
tection for $7.30 a year and the interest on your money. " 

120 



Objections and Answers 121 

Notwithstanding the consternation of the yoting 
man, the manager sold a policy and had a contented and 
satisfied policyholder, who said that he now saw the 
reasonableness of it for the first time, and that he never 
could see, anyhow, how the insurance companies could 
do something for nothing. 



ABOUT YOURSELF 




O company is liable to stand any higher in a 
community than the standing of its local 
representatives. Therefore, do not write 
your insurance in saloons or hang out at 
any but the best places. Be dignSied but 
don't strut . When you succeed in closing 
a good deal, put your commissions in yovir pocket and 
don't get funny and flash your roll and blow around about 
your success. Just quietly get right after the next man. 
If a competitor butts in and *' closes'* your pros- 
pect when you are not looking, don't whine, and above 
all, don't talk about it. To do so is an admission that 
the other fellow is smarter than you, while in fact he 
may be only another of those irresponsible *' Twisters" 
that is here today, there tomorrow and in Hades for all 
eternity. 

Write your insurance strictly on your policy con- 
tracts. It is worse to misrepresent your own policies 
than it is to misrepresent the policies of your competi- 
tors, and either is reprehensible. 

If you are writing insurance in the rural districts 
don't wear a silk hat and toothpick shoes and ape city 
manners. Dress plainly and make the good housewife 
understand that you know you are amongst the best peo- 
ple on earth and are glad of it. Be a good mixer, but 
never a bimi. Always have a good word for everyone, 
even your competitors. Take things as they come with- 
out a whine, even applications. 

Write your insurance so cleanly that every man 
who buys a policy of you will get into his buggy any 
time and help you get another. 

122 



AN AGENT WRITES 




N agent writes: Suppose you had been 
talking insurance all the evening and it 
was past their bed time and you pulled 
the *' ap." and asked him for his full name 
and instead of replying, he got up and 
took his wife into another room to **talk 
it over, '' and they were gone a long time and when they 
came back he said: *' We have decided to put it off for a 
while. '' What would you do then? 

In the first place, I would not talk to a man all the 
evening without having learned his full name, thus being 
able to avoid asking the very question that he is most 
liable to shy at. I would put his name down when I 
pulled the application and begin by asking him where he 
had lived for the past ten years; if he had ever been re- 
fused a policy, or any of a dozen questions that are re- 
quired. I would not be nervous at their long stay in the 
other room, for the longer they were out the more certain 
I would be that at least one of them was in favor of it, 
else they would have decided it in a minute. Moreover, 
when they came back, I would not let either of them 
have the first word. I would look pleasant and say 
that I was glad to see them talk it over together. But 
there was one feature that perhaps they might both 
overlook, and I would go on and on and get them into 
line once more if I had to start all over again. It would 
not be difficult to determine the status when they came 
back, and size up the one that was holding out. What- 
ever you do, never be caught looking at the clock. 

Another agent asks: What would you do if you had 

123 



124 Objections and Answers 

talked to a man till midnight and he got up and went 
to bed without a word and left you sitting there alone? 
I would lie down on the floor and go to sleep so as 
to be right on deck when the inhospitable cuss showed 
up in the morning. 



AVOIRDUPOIS 

He talked with the farmer out by the bam door, 

And he talked and he talked till his talker was sore, 

The farmer looked wise and solemnly said 

He cariated to leave 'em well fixed when he's dead. 

He'd worked like a son-of-a-gun all of his life, 

And ttik purty good care of his children and wife, 

But he had to admit that he hadn't got nigh 

Enough money to keep 'em in case he should die. 

** Let's go in," said the agent, *'and talk with your 

i'wife." 
But the farmer looked scared, saying, **Not on yer 

life; 
She's a reglar tornado and cyclone in one 
Whenever the talk on insurance's begun. 
She scalded two agents and knocked out a third 
Before they'd had time to say more than a word. 
A feller cum here representin' a lodge. 
And all't saved his hide was his quickness to dodge; 
He got over the fence just ahead of the dog. 
By a high runnin' jtmip that resembled a frog. 
She's sore on you fellers. When she gits on a spell, 
And when she cuts loose, it's worser nor hell. 
I need the protection bad enough, the Lord knows. 
But she'll manage to live when I turn up my toes. 
Well, I've got to mosey. You'd better skip out. 
By them sounds in the kitchen, she's movin' about. 
And if she should spot us a settin' out here 
'Twould be safer fer you to git into the clear. 
I'm purty good sized, weigh two thirty-four, 
But she tips the scales at a couple pounds more. " 
He said to his man as they went through the gate: 
** Drive on; nothing doing; they are both 'overweight. ' " 

125 






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